negative impacts of tourism in developing countries

What is the impact of tourism on development?

Image: Passengers walk across an air bridge as they disembark a flight at Changi Airport in Singapore. REUTERS/Vivek Prakash.

.chakra .wef-1c7l3mo{-webkit-transition:all 0.15s ease-out;transition:all 0.15s ease-out;cursor:pointer;-webkit-text-decoration:none;text-decoration:none;outline:none;color:inherit;}.chakra .wef-1c7l3mo:hover,.chakra .wef-1c7l3mo[data-hover]{-webkit-text-decoration:underline;text-decoration:underline;}.chakra .wef-1c7l3mo:focus,.chakra .wef-1c7l3mo[data-focus]{box-shadow:0 0 0 3px rgba(168,203,251,0.5);} John Perrottet

.chakra .wef-9dduvl{margin-top:16px;margin-bottom:16px;line-height:1.388;font-size:1.25rem;}@media screen and (min-width:56.5rem){.chakra .wef-9dduvl{font-size:1.125rem;}} Explore and monitor how .chakra .wef-15eoq1r{margin-top:16px;margin-bottom:16px;line-height:1.388;font-size:1.25rem;color:#F7DB5E;}@media screen and (min-width:56.5rem){.chakra .wef-15eoq1r{font-size:1.125rem;}} Travel and Tourism is affecting economies, industries and global issues

A hand holding a looking glass by a lake

.chakra .wef-1nk5u5d{margin-top:16px;margin-bottom:16px;line-height:1.388;color:#2846F8;font-size:1.25rem;}@media screen and (min-width:56.5rem){.chakra .wef-1nk5u5d{font-size:1.125rem;}} Get involved with our crowdsourced digital platform to deliver impact at scale

Stay up to date:, travel and tourism.

Tourism is growing, and growing fast. After surpassing 1 billion international visitors in 2012, we are expecting 1.8 billion by 2030. Tourism is growing faster than the global economy and, for the first time, the statistics for 2015 are expected to show that there were more trips taken to the developing world than to the developed world. But what does this actually mean? Growth, on its own, is not enough. Destinations and their stakeholders are responsible for ensuring that growth is well-managed; that benefits are maximized; and that any negative externalities are minimized. This requires a continuous process of planning and management that evolves and that can be measured over time. For the World Bank Group, our clients and our development partners, this process of planning and management is a central interest. How can we help these processes to deliver more and better development impact? What kinds of interventions or types of assistance will deliver the best results? How do you define the best results – for whom? – and how do we measure them? Being able to demonstrate how the tourism sector contributes to the Bank Group’s twin goals of eliminating extreme poverty and promoting shared prosperity is an imperative for all stakeholders. It’s relevant for national governments, sub-national state agencies, businesses (both multinationals and SMEs), multilateral development banks, NGOs, academics and think tanks. Moreover, it’s vital in helping guide future planning and development, gaining access to and applying for funding, and demonstrating progress to constituents at all levels.

Despite the great breadth and depth of existing impact information, however, serious concerns remain about the accuracy, complexity, gaps, comparability and sustainability of the types of the impact analyses that have been carried out. The Bank Group’s Sustainable Tourism Global Solutions Group recently convened a thought-leadership event in Washington to begin a preliminary discussion about how all stakeholders can come together to try and address some of the current shortcomings. During the “ Measuring for Impact in Touris m” event, we heard about a wide range of challenges for those working in this area and we began to map out the greatest gaps and issues. As Anabel Gonzalez, the Senior Director of the Trade and Competitiveness Global Practice, said at that conference: “We want to be better at monitoring and evaluating our impact, we want to learn from others, and we want to contribute more effectively to tourism development. I believe these are goals most of you will share. We invite you to join this discussion – and be frank, open and provocative.”The findings can be found in our report, “ Towards More Effective Impact Measurement in the Tourism Sector: Observations and Key Issues ,” which highlights a number of priorities. Some of those challenges concern the availability, quality and consistency of data; the high cost of impact measurement for SMEs; the proliferation of different systems; issues of attribution; quantifying notions of “value”; and the ability to communicate effectively to a wide range of audiences. Some key areas for immediate follow-up and further analysis were also identified. They include:

-Exploring the theory of change by examining more closely the proposition that, when tourism growth occurs, those living in extreme poverty benefit and by digging deeper into what tourism growth really means for the poor, especially in terms of employment.

-Assessing the impact value of different types of tourism.

-Assessing and developing the role of technology for data collection, impact measurement and communication.

-Evaluating the use of training for better communication – including assessing what has been tried and what has worked and considering how it could be scaled up.

-Analyzing the necessity and practicality of improving collaboration among various actors, and assessing the alignment of frameworks along with proposals for greater alignment.

-Developing ideas and proposals for the enhanced sharing and pooling of impact data.

-Developing ideas and proposals for greater inclusion of SMEs.

The Bank Group is committed to advancing this agenda . As an international organization heavily invested in the sector, with a deep motivation to deliver change for the world’s poorest people, we aim to take a leading role in a number of key areas. Other major stakeholders have also shown their support. Harvard University and the University of Sussex have asked to host follow-up events. Wyndham Hotels, the World Trade Organization, the United Nations Environment Program, the World Wildlife Fund and Sustainable Travel International have sought specific collaboration and partnership opportunities. The Bank Group will continue to convene meetings, promote dialogue, conduct research and publish relevant information – focusing our interventions on those areas where we’re well-placed to fulfill the twin goals of eliminating extreme poverty and promoting shared prosperity.

Don't miss any update on this topic

Create a free account and access your personalized content collection with our latest publications and analyses.

License and Republishing

World Economic Forum articles may be republished in accordance with the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International Public License, and in accordance with our Terms of Use.

The views expressed in this article are those of the author alone and not the World Economic Forum.

.chakra .wef-1dtnjt5{display:-webkit-box;display:-webkit-flex;display:-ms-flexbox;display:flex;-webkit-align-items:center;-webkit-box-align:center;-ms-flex-align:center;align-items:center;-webkit-flex-wrap:wrap;-ms-flex-wrap:wrap;flex-wrap:wrap;} More on Industries in Depth .chakra .wef-17xejub{-webkit-flex:1;-ms-flex:1;flex:1;justify-self:stretch;-webkit-align-self:stretch;-ms-flex-item-align:stretch;align-self:stretch;} .chakra .wef-nr1rr4{display:-webkit-inline-box;display:-webkit-inline-flex;display:-ms-inline-flexbox;display:inline-flex;white-space:normal;vertical-align:middle;text-transform:uppercase;font-size:0.75rem;border-radius:0.25rem;font-weight:700;-webkit-align-items:center;-webkit-box-align:center;-ms-flex-align:center;align-items:center;line-height:1.2;-webkit-letter-spacing:1.25px;-moz-letter-spacing:1.25px;-ms-letter-spacing:1.25px;letter-spacing:1.25px;background:none;padding:0px;color:#B3B3B3;-webkit-box-decoration-break:clone;box-decoration-break:clone;-webkit-box-decoration-break:clone;}@media screen and (min-width:37.5rem){.chakra .wef-nr1rr4{font-size:0.875rem;}}@media screen and (min-width:56.5rem){.chakra .wef-nr1rr4{font-size:1rem;}} See all

Robot rock stars, pocket forests, and the battle for chips - Forum podcasts you should hear this month

Robin Pomeroy and Linda Lacina

April 29, 2024

Agritech: Shaping Agriculture in Emerging Economies, Today and Tomorrow

Confused about AI? Here are the podcasts you need on artificial intelligence

Robin Pomeroy

April 25, 2024

Which technologies will enable a cleaner steel industry?

Daniel Boero Vargas and Mandy Chan

Industry government collaboration on agritech can empower global agriculture

Abhay Pareek and Drishti Kumar

April 23, 2024

Nearly 15% of the seafood we produce each year is wasted. Here’s what needs to happen

Charlotte Edmond

April 11, 2024

Tools and Resources
Customer Services
Agriculture and the Environment
Case Studies
Chemistry and Toxicology
Environment and Human Health
Environmental Biology
Environmental Economics
Environmental Engineering
Environmental Ethics and Philosophy
Environmental History
Environmental Issues and Problems
Environmental Processes and Systems
Environmental Sociology and Psychology
Environments
Framing Concepts in Environmental Science
Management and Planning
Policy, Governance, and Law
Quantitative Analysis and Tools
Sustainability and Solutions
Share This Facebook LinkedIn Twitter

Article contents

The role of tourism in sustainable development.

Robert B. Richardson Robert B. Richardson Community Sustainability, Michigan State University
https://doi.org/10.1093/acrefore/9780199389414.013.387
Published online: 25 March 2021

Sustainable development is the foundational principle for enhancing human and economic development while maintaining the functional integrity of ecological and social systems that support regional economies. Tourism has played a critical role in sustainable development in many countries and regions around the world. In developing countries, tourism development has been used as an important strategy for increasing economic growth, alleviating poverty, creating jobs, and improving food security. Many developing countries are in regions that are characterized by high levels of biological diversity, natural resources, and cultural heritage sites that attract international tourists whose local purchases generate income and support employment and economic development. Tourism has been associated with the principles of sustainable development because of its potential to support environmental protection and livelihoods. However, the relationship between tourism and the environment is multifaceted, as some types of tourism have been associated with negative environmental impacts, many of which are borne by host communities.

The concept of sustainable tourism development emerged in contrast to mass tourism, which involves the participation of large numbers of people, often in structured or packaged tours. Mass tourism has been associated with economic leakage and dependence, along with negative environmental and social impacts. Sustainable tourism development has been promoted in various ways as a framing concept in contrast to these economic, environmental, and social impacts. Some literature has acknowledged a vagueness of the concept of sustainable tourism, which has been used to advocate for fundamentally different strategies for tourism development that may exacerbate existing conflicts between conservation and development paradigms. Tourism has played an important role in sustainable development in some countries through the development of alternative tourism models, including ecotourism, community-based tourism, pro-poor tourism, slow tourism, green tourism, and heritage tourism, among others that aim to enhance livelihoods, increase local economic growth, and provide for environmental protection. Although these models have been given significant attention among researchers, the extent of their implementation in tourism planning initiatives has been limited, superficial, or incomplete in many contexts.

The sustainability of tourism as a global system is disputed among scholars. Tourism is dependent on travel, and nearly all forms of transportation require the use of non-renewable resources such as fossil fuels for energy. The burning of fossil fuels for transportation generates emissions of greenhouse gases that contribute to global climate change, which is fundamentally unsustainable. Tourism is also vulnerable to both localized and global shocks. Studies of the vulnerability of tourism to localized shocks include the impacts of natural disasters, disease outbreaks, and civil unrest. Studies of the vulnerability of tourism to global shocks include the impacts of climate change, economic crisis, global public health pandemics, oil price shocks, and acts of terrorism. It is clear that tourism has contributed significantly to economic development globally, but its role in sustainable development is uncertain, debatable, and potentially contradictory.

conservation
economic development
environmental impacts
sustainable development
sustainable tourism
tourism development

Introduction

Sustainable development is the guiding principle for advancing human and economic development while maintaining the integrity of ecosystems and social systems on which the economy depends. It is also the foundation of the leading global framework for international cooperation—the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development and the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) (United Nations, 2015 ). The concept of sustainable development is often associated with the publication of Our Common Future (World Commission on Environment and Development [WCED], 1987 , p. 29), which defined it as “paths of human progress that meet the needs and aspirations of the present generation without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their needs.” Concerns about the environmental implications of economic development in lower income countries had been central to debates about development studies since the 1970s (Adams, 2009 ). The principles of sustainable development have come to dominate the development discourse, and the concept has become the primary development paradigm since the 1990s.

Tourism has played an increasingly important role in sustainable development since the 1990s, both globally and in particular countries and regions. For decades, tourism has been promoted as a low-impact, non-extractive option for economic development, particularly for developing countries (Gössling, 2000 ). Many developing countries have managed to increase their participation in the global economy through development of international tourism. Tourism development is increasingly viewed as an important tool in increasing economic growth, alleviating poverty, and improving food security. Tourism enables communities that are poor in material wealth, but rich in history and cultural heritage, to leverage their unique assets for economic development (Honey & Gilpin, 2009 ). More importantly, tourism offers an alternative to large-scale development projects, such as construction of dams, and to extractive industries such as mining and forestry, all of which contribute to emissions of pollutants and threaten biodiversity and the cultural values of Indigenous Peoples.

Environmental quality in destination areas is inextricably linked with tourism, as visiting natural areas and sightseeing are often the primary purpose of many leisure travels. Some forms of tourism, such as ecotourism, can contribute to the conservation of biodiversity and the protection of ecosystem functions in destination areas (Fennell, 2020 ; Gössling, 1999 ). Butler ( 1991 ) suggests that there is a kind of mutual dependence between tourism and the environment that should generate mutual benefits. Many developing countries are in regions that are characterized by high levels of species diversity, natural resources, and protected areas. Such ideas imply that tourism may be well aligned with the tenets of sustainable development.

However, the relationship between tourism and the environment is complex, as some forms of tourism have been associated with negative environmental impacts, including greenhouse gas emissions, freshwater use, land use, and food consumption (Butler, 1991 ; Gössling & Peeters, 2015 ; Hunter & Green, 1995 ; Vitousek et al., 1997 ). Assessments of the sustainability of tourism have highlighted several themes, including (a) parks, biodiversity, and conservation; (b) pollution and climate change; (c) prosperity, economic growth, and poverty alleviation; (d) peace, security, and safety; and (e) population stabilization and reduction (Buckley, 2012 ). From a global perspective, tourism contributes to (a) changes in land cover and land use; (b) energy use, (c) biotic exchange and extinction of wild species; (d) exchange and dispersion of diseases; and (e) changes in the perception and understanding of the environment (Gössling, 2002 ).

Research on tourism and the environment spans a wide range of social and natural science disciplines, and key contributions have been disseminated across many interdisciplinary fields, including biodiversity conservation, climate science, economics, and environmental science, among others (Buckley, 2011 ; Butler, 1991 ; Gössling, 2002 ; Lenzen et al., 2018 ). Given the global significance of the tourism sector and its environmental impacts, the role of tourism in sustainable development is an important topic of research in environmental science generally and in environmental economics and management specifically. Reviews of tourism research have highlighted future research priorities for sustainable development, including the role of tourism in the designation and expansion of protected areas; improvement in environmental accounting techniques that quantify environmental impacts; and the effects of individual perceptions of responsibility in addressing climate change (Buckley, 2012 ).

Tourism is one of the world’s largest industries, and it has linkages with many of the prime sectors of the global economy (Fennell, 2020 ). As a global economic sector, tourism represents one of the largest generators of wealth, and it is an important agent of economic growth and development (Garau-Vadell et al., 2018 ). Tourism is a critical industry in many local and national economies, and it represents a large and growing share of world trade (Hunter, 1995 ). Global tourism has had an average annual increase of 6.6% over the past half century, with international tourist arrivals rising sharply from 25.2 million in 1950 to more than 950 million in 2010 . In 2019 , the number of international tourists reached 1.5 billion, up 4% from 2018 (Fennell, 2020 ; United Nations World Tourism Organization [UNWTO], 2020 ). European countries are host to more than half of international tourists, but since 1990 , growth in international arrivals has risen faster than the global average, in both the Middle East and the Asia and Pacific region (UNWTO, 2020 ).

The growth in global tourism has been accompanied by an expansion of travel markets and a diversification of tourism destinations. In 1950 , the top five travel destinations were all countries in Europe and the Americas, and these destinations held 71% of the global travel market (Fennell, 2020 ). By 2002 , these countries represented only 35%, which underscores the emergence of newly accessible travel destinations in Africa, Asia, the Middle East, and the Pacific Rim, including numerous developing countries. Over the past 70 years, global tourism has grown significantly as an economic sector, and it has contributed to the economic development of dozens of nations.

Given the growth of international tourism and its emergence as one of the world’s largest export sectors, the question of its impact on economic growth for the host countries has been a topic of great interest in the tourism literature. Two hypotheses have emerged regarding the role of tourism in the economic growth process (Apergis & Payne, 2012 ). First, tourism-led growth hypothesis relies on the assumption that tourism is an engine of growth that generates spillovers and positive externalities through economic linkages that will impact the overall economy. Second, the economic-driven tourism growth hypothesis emphasizes policies oriented toward well-defined and enforceable property rights, stable political institutions, and adequate investment in both physical and human capital to facilitate the development of the tourism sector. Studies have concluded with support for both the tourism-led growth hypothesis (e.g., Durbarry, 2004 ; Katircioglu, 2010 ) and the economic-led growth hypothesis (e.g., Katircioglu, 2009 ; Oh, 2005 ), whereas other studies have found support for a bidirectional causality for tourism and economic growth (e.g., Apergis & Payne, 2012 ; Lee & Chang, 2008 ).

The growth of tourism has been marked by an increase in the competition for tourist expenditures, making it difficult for destinations to maintain their share of the international tourism market (Butler, 1991 ). Tourism development is cyclical and subject to short-term cycles and overconsumption of resources. Butler ( 1980 ) developed a tourist-area cycle of evolution that depicts the number of tourists rising sharply over time through periods of exploration, involvement, and development, before eventual consolidation and stagnation. When tourism growth exceeds the carrying capacity of the area, resource degradation can lead to the decline of tourism unless specific steps are taken to promote rejuvenation (Butler, 1980 , 1991 ).

The potential of tourism development as a tool to contribute to environmental conservation, economic growth, and poverty reduction is derived from several unique characteristics of the tourism system (UNWTO, 2002 ). First, tourism represents an opportunity for economic diversification, particularly in marginal areas with few other export options. Tourists are attracted to remote areas with high values of cultural, wildlife, and landscape assets. The cultural and natural heritage of developing countries is frequently based on such assets, and tourism represents an opportunity for income generation through the preservation of heritage values. Tourism is the only export sector where the consumer travels to the exporting country, which provides opportunities for lower-income households to become exporters through the sale of goods and services to foreign tourists. Tourism is also labor intensive; it provides small-scale employment opportunities, which also helps to promote gender equity. Finally, there are numerous indirect benefits of tourism for people living in poverty, including increased market access for remote areas through the development of roads, infrastructure, and communication networks. Nevertheless, travel is highly income elastic and carbon intensive, which has significant implications for the sustainability of the tourism sector (Lenzen et al., 2018 ).

Concerns about environmental issues appeared in tourism research just as global awareness of the environmental impacts of human activities was expanding. The United Nations Conference on the Human Environment was held in Stockholm in 1972 , the same year as the publication of The Limits to Growth (Meadows et al., 1972 ), which highlighted the concerns about the implications of exponential economic and population growth in a world of finite resources. This was the same year that the famous Blue Marble photograph of Earth was taken by the crew of the Apollo 17 spacecraft (Höhler, 2015 , p. 10), and the image captured the planet cloaked in the darkness of space and became a symbol of Earth’s fragility and vulnerability. As noted by Buckley ( 2012 ), tourism researchers turned their attention to social and environmental issues around the same time (Cohen, 1978 ; Farrell & McLellan, 1987 ; Turner & Ash, 1975 ; Young, 1973 ).

The notion of sustainable development is often associated with the publication of Our Common Future , the report of the World Commission on Environment and Development, also known as the Brundtland Commission (WCED, 1987 ). The report characterized sustainable development in terms of meeting “the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs” (WCED, 1987 , p. 43). Four basic principles are fundamental to the concept of sustainability: (a) the idea of holistic planning and strategy making; (b) the importance of preserving essential ecological processes; (c) the need to protect both human heritage and biodiversity; and (d) the need to develop in such a way that productivity can be sustained over the long term for future generations (Bramwell & Lane, 1993 ). In addition to achieving balance between economic growth and the conservation of natural resources, there should be a balance of fairness and opportunity between the nations of the world.

Although the modern concept of sustainable development emerged with the publication of Our Common Future , sustainable development has its roots in ideas about sustainable forest management that were developed in Europe during the 17th and 18th centuries (Blewitt, 2015 ; Grober, 2007 ). Sustainable forest management is concerned with the stewardship and use of forests in a way that maintains their biodiversity, productivity, and regeneration capacity as well as their potential to fulfill society’s demands for forest products and benefits. Building on these ideas, Daly ( 1990 ) offered two operational principles of sustainable development. First, sustainable development implies that harvest rates should be no greater than rates of regeneration; this concept is known as maximum sustainable yield. Second, waste emission rates should not exceed the natural assimilative capacities of the ecosystems into which the wastes are emitted. Regenerative and assimilative capacities are characterized as natural capital, and a failure to maintain these capacities is not sustainable.

Shortly after the emergence of the concept of sustainable development in academic and policy discourse, tourism researchers began referring to the notion of sustainable tourism (May, 1991 ; Nash & Butler, 1990 ), which soon became the dominant paradigm of tourism development. The concept of sustainable tourism, as with the role of tourism in sustainable development, has been interpreted in different ways, and there is a lack of consensus concerning its meaning, objectives, and indicators (Sharpley, 2000 ). Growing interest in the subject inspired the creation of a new academic journal, Journal of Sustainable Tourism , which was launched in 1993 and has become a leading tourism journal. It is described as “an international journal that publishes research on tourism and sustainable development, including economic, social, cultural and political aspects.”

The notion of sustainable tourism development emerged in contrast to mass tourism, which is characterized by the participation of large numbers of people, often provided as structured or packaged tours. Mass tourism has risen sharply in the last half century. International arrivals alone have increased by an average annual rate of more than 25% since 1950 , and many of those trips involved mass tourism activities (Fennell, 2020 ; UNWTO, 2020 ). Some examples of mass tourism include beach resorts, cruise ship tourism, gaming casinos, golf resorts, group tours, ski resorts, theme parks, and wildlife safari tourism, among others. Little data exist regarding the volume of domestic mass tourism, but nevertheless mass tourism activities dominate the global tourism sector. Mass tourism has been shown to generate benefits to host countries, such as income and employment generation, although it has also been associated with economic leakage (where revenue generated by tourism is lost to other countries’ economies) and economic dependency (where developing countries are dependent on wealthier countries for tourists, imports, and foreign investment) (Cater, 1993 ; Conway & Timms, 2010 ; Khan, 1997 ; Peeters, 2012 ). Mass tourism has been associated with numerous negative environmental impacts and social impacts (Cater, 1993 ; Conway & Timms, 2010 ; Fennell, 2020 ; Ghimire, 2013 ; Gursoy et al., 2010 ; Liu, 2003 ; Peeters, 2012 ; Wheeller, 2007 ). Sustainable tourism development has been promoted in various ways as a framing concept in contrast to many of these economic, environmental, and social impacts.

Much of the early research on sustainable tourism focused on defining the concept, which has been the subject of vigorous debate (Bramwell & Lane, 1993 ; Garrod & Fyall, 1998 ; Hunter, 1995 ; Inskeep, 1991 ; Liu, 2003 ; Sharpley, 2000 ). Early definitions of sustainable tourism development seemed to fall in one of two categories (Sharpley, 2000 ). First, the “tourism-centric” paradigm of sustainable tourism development focuses on sustaining tourism as an economic activity (Hunter, 1995 ). Second, alternative paradigms have situated sustainable tourism in the context of wider sustainable development policies (Butler, 1991 ). One of the most comprehensive definitions of sustainable tourism echoes some of the language of the Brundtland Commission’s definition of sustainable development (WCED, 1987 ), emphasizing opportunities for the future while also integrating social and environmental concerns:

Sustainable tourism can be thought of as meeting the needs of present tourists and host regions while protecting and enhancing opportunity for the future. Sustainable tourism development is envisaged as leading to management of all resources in such a way that we can fulfill economic, social and aesthetic needs while maintaining cultural integrity, essential ecological processes, biological diversity and life support systems. (Inskeep, 1991 , p. 461)

Hunter argued that over the short and long terms, sustainable tourism development should

“meet the needs and wants of the local host community in terms of improved living standards and quality of life;

satisfy the demands of tourists and the tourism industry, and continue to attract them in order to meet the first aim; and

safeguard the environmental resource base for tourism, encompassing natural, built and cultural components, in order to achieve both of the preceding aims.” (Hunter, 1995 , p. 156)

Numerous other definitions have been documented, and the term itself has been subject to widespread critique (Buckley, 2012 ; Hunter, 1995 ; Liu, 2003 ). Nevertheless, there have been numerous calls to move beyond debate about a definition and to consider how it may best be implemented in practice (Garrod & Fyall, 1998 ; Liu, 2003 ). Cater ( 1993 ) identified three key criteria for sustainable tourism: (a) meeting the needs of the host population in terms of improved living standards both in the short and long terms; (b) satisfying the demands of a growing number of tourists; and (c) safeguarding the natural environment in order to achieve both of the preceding aims.

Some literature has acknowledged a vagueness of the concept of sustainable tourism, which has been used to advocate for fundamentally different strategies for tourism development that may exacerbate existing conflicts between conservation and development paradigms (Garrod & Fyall, 1998 ; Hunter, 1995 ; Liu, 2003 ; McKercher, 1993b ). Similar criticisms have been leveled at the concept of sustainable development, which has been described as an oxymoron with a wide range of meanings (Adams, 2009 ; Daly, 1990 ) and “defined in such a way as to be either morally repugnant or logically redundant” (Beckerman, 1994 , p. 192). Sharpley ( 2000 ) suggests that in the tourism literature, there has been “a consistent and fundamental failure to build a theoretical link between sustainable tourism and its parental paradigm,” sustainable development (p. 2). Hunter ( 1995 ) suggests that practical measures designed to operationalize sustainable tourism fail to address many of the critical issues that are central to the concept of sustainable development generally and may even actually counteract the fundamental requirements of sustainable development. He suggests that mainstream sustainable tourism development is concerned with protecting the immediate resource base that will sustain tourism development while ignoring concerns for the status of the wider tourism resource base, such as potential problems associated with air pollution, congestion, introduction of invasive species, and declining oil reserves. The dominant paradigm of sustainable tourism development has been described as introverted, tourism-centric, and in competition with other sectors for scarce resources (McKercher, 1993a ). Hunter ( 1995 , p. 156) proposes an alternative, “extraparochial” paradigm where sustainable tourism development is reconceptualized in terms of its contribution to overall sustainable development. Such a paradigm would reconsider the scope, scale, and sectoral context of tourism-related resource utilization issues.

“Sustainability,” “sustainable tourism,” and “sustainable development” are all well-established terms that have often been used loosely and interchangeably in the tourism literature (Liu, 2003 ). Nevertheless, the subject of sustainable tourism has been given considerable attention and has been the focus of numerous academic compilations and textbooks (Coccossis & Nijkamp, 1995 ; Hall & Lew, 1998 ; Stabler, 1997 ; Swarbrooke, 1999 ), and it calls for new approaches to sustainable tourism development (Bramwell & Lane, 1993 ; Garrod & Fyall, 1998 ; Hunter, 1995 ; Sharpley, 2000 ). The notion of sustainable tourism has been reconceptualized in the literature by several authors who provided alternative frameworks for tourism development (Buckley, 2012 ; Gössling, 2002 ; Hunter, 1995 ; Liu, 2003 ; McKercher, 1993b ; Sharpley, 2000 ).

Early research in sustainable tourism focused on the local environmental impacts of tourism, including energy use, water use, food consumption, and change in land use (Buckley, 2012 ; Butler, 1991 ; Gössling, 2002 ; Hunter & Green, 1995 ). Subsequent research has emphasized the global environmental impacts of tourism, such as greenhouse gas emissions and biodiversity losses (Gössling, 2002 ; Gössling & Peeters, 2015 ; Lenzen et al., 2018 ). Additional research has emphasized the impacts of environmental change on tourism itself, including the impacts of climate change on tourist behavior (Gössling et al., 2012 ; Richardson & Loomis, 2004 ; Scott et al., 2012 ; Viner, 2006 ). Countries that are dependent on tourism for economic growth may be particularly vulnerable to the impacts of climate change (Richardson & Witkoswki, 2010 ).

The early focus on environmental issues in sustainable tourism has been broadened to include economic, social, and cultural issues as well as questions of power and equity in society (Bramwell & Lane, 1993 ; Sharpley, 2014 ), and some of these frameworks have integrated notions of social equity, prosperity, and cultural heritage values. Sustainable tourism is dependent on critical long-term considerations of the impacts; notions of equity; an appreciation of the importance of linkages (i.e., economic, social, and environmental); and the facilitation of cooperation and collaboration between different stakeholders (Elliott & Neirotti, 2008 ).

McKercher ( 1993b ) notes that tourism resources are typically part of the public domain or are intrinsically linked to the social fabric of the host community. As a result, many commonplace tourist activities such as sightseeing may be perceived as invasive by members of the host community. Many social impacts of tourism can be linked to the overuse of the resource base, increases in traffic congestion, rising land prices, urban sprawl, and changes in the social structure of host communities. Given the importance of tourist–resident interaction, sustainable tourism development depends in part on the support of the host community (Garau-Vadell et al., 2018 ).

Tourism planning involves the dual objectives of optimizing the well-being of local residents in host communities and minimizing the costs of tourism development (Sharpley, 2014 ). Tourism researchers have paid significant attention to examining the social impacts of tourism in general and to understanding host communities’ perceptions of tourism in particular. Studies of the social impacts of tourism development have examined the perceptions of local residents and the effects of tourism on social cohesion, traditional lifestyles, and the erosion of cultural heritage, particularly among Indigenous Peoples (Butler & Hinch, 2007 ; Deery et al., 2012 ; Mathieson & Wall, 1982 ; Sharpley, 2014 ; Whitford & Ruhanen, 2016 ).

Alternative Tourism and Sustainable Development

A wide body of published research is related to the role of tourism in sustainable development, and much of the literature involves case studies of particular types of tourism. Many such studies contrast types of alternative tourism with those of mass tourism, which has received sustained criticism for decades and is widely considered to be unsustainable (Cater, 1993 ; Conway & Timms, 2010 ; Fennell, 2020 ; Gursoy et al., 2010 ; Liu, 2003 ; Peeters, 2012 ; Zapata et al., 2011 ). Still, some tourism researchers have taken issue with the conclusion that mass tourism is inherently unsustainable (Sharpley, 2000 ; Weaver, 2007 ), and some have argued for developing pathways to “sustainable mass tourism” as “the desired and impending outcome for most destinations” (Weaver, 2012 , p. 1030). In integrating an ethical component to mass tourism development, Weaver ( 2014 , p. 131) suggests that the desirable outcome is “enlightened mass tourism.” Such suggestions have been contested in the literature and criticized for dubious assumptions about emergent norms of sustainability and support for growth, which are widely seen as contradictory (Peeters, 2012 ; Wheeller, 2007 ).

Models of responsible or alternative tourism development include ecotourism, community-based tourism, pro-poor tourism, slow tourism, green tourism, and heritage tourism, among others. Most models of alternative tourism development emphasize themes that aim to counteract the perceived negative impacts of conventional or mass tourism. As such, the objectives of these models of tourism development tend to focus on minimizing environmental impacts, supporting biodiversity conservation, empowering local communities, alleviating poverty, and engendering pleasant relationships between tourists and residents.

Approaches to alternative tourism development tend to overlap with themes of responsible tourism, and the two terms are frequently used interchangeably. Responsible tourism has been characterized in terms of numerous elements, including

ensuring that communities are involved in and benefit from tourism;

respecting local, natural, and cultural environments;

involving the local community in planning and decision-making;

using local resources sustainably;

behaving in ways that are sensitive to the host culture;

maintaining and encouraging natural, economic, and cultural diversity; and

assessing environmental, social, and economic impacts as a prerequisite to tourism development (Spenceley, 2012 ).

Hetzer ( 1965 ) identified four fundamental principles or perquisites for a more responsible form of tourism: (a) minimum environmental impact; (b) minimum impact on and maximum respect for host cultures; (c) maximum economic benefits to the host country; and (d) maximum leisure satisfaction to participating tourists.

The history of ecotourism is closely connected with the emergence of sustainable development, as it was born out of a concern for the conservation of biodiversity. Ecotourism is a form of tourism that aims to minimize local environmental impacts while bringing benefits to protected areas and the people living around those lands (Honey, 2008 ). Ecotourism represents a small segment of nature-based tourism, which is understood as tourism based on the natural attractions of an area, such as scenic areas and wildlife (Gössling, 1999 ). The ecotourism movement gained momentum in the 1990s, primarily in developing countries in Latin America and sub-Saharan Africa, and nearly all countries are now engaged in some form of ecotourism. In some communities, ecotourism is the primary economic activity and source of income and economic development.

The term “ecotourism” was coined by Hector Ceballos-Lascuráin and defined by him as “tourism that consists in travelling to relatively undisturbed or uncontaminated natural areas with the specific object of studying, admiring, and enjoying the scenery and its wild plants and animals” (Ceballos-Lascuráin, 1987 , p. 13). In discussing ecotourism resources, he also made reference to “any existing cultural manifestations (both past and present) found in these areas” (Ceballos-Lascuráin, 1987 , p. 14). The basic precepts of ecotourism had been discussed long before the actual use of the term. Twenty years earlier, Hetzer ( 1965 ) referred to a form of tourism “based principally upon natural and archaeological resources such as caves, fossil sites (and) archaeological sites.” Thus, both natural resources and cultural resources were integrated into ecotourism frameworks from the earliest manifestations.

Costa Rica is well known for having successfully integrated ecotourism in its overall strategy for sustainable development, and numerous case studies of ecotourism in Costa Rica appear in the literature (Chase et al., 1998 ; Fennell & Eagles, 1990 ; Gray & Campbell, 2007 ; Hearne & Salinas, 2002 ). Ecotourism in Costa Rica has been seen as having supported the economic development of the country while promoting biodiversity conservation in its extensive network of protected areas. Chase et al. ( 1998 ) estimated the demand for ecotourism in a study of differential pricing of entrance fees at national parks in Costa Rica. The authors estimated elasticities associated with the own-price, cross-price, and income variables and found that the elasticities of demand were significantly different between three different national park sites. The results reveal the heterogeneity characterizing tourist behavior and park attractions and amenities. Hearne and Salinas ( 2002 ) used choice experiments to examine the preferences of domestic and foreign tourists in Costa Rica in an ecotourism site. Both sets of tourists demonstrated a preference for improved infrastructure, more information, and lower entrance fees. Foreign tourists demonstrated relatively stronger preferences for the inclusion of restrictions in the access to some trails.

Ecotourism has also been studied extensively in Kenya (Southgate, 2006 ), Malaysia (Lian Chan & Baum, 2007 ), Nepal (Baral et al., 2008 ), Peru (Stronza, 2007 ), and Taiwan (Lai & Nepal, 2006 ), among many other countries. Numerous case studies have demonstrated the potential for ecotourism to contribute to sustainable development by providing support for biodiversity conservation, local livelihoods, and regional development.

Community-Based Tourism

Community-based tourism (CBT) is a model of tourism development that emphasizes the development of local communities and allows for local residents to have substantial control over its development and management, and a major proportion of the benefits remain within the community. CBT emerged during the 1970s as a response to the negative impacts of the international mass tourism development model (Cater, 1993 ; Hall & Lew, 2009 ; Turner & Ash, 1975 ; Zapata et al., 2011 ).

Community-based tourism has been examined for its potential to contribute to poverty reduction. In a study of the viability of the CBT model to support socioeconomic development and poverty alleviation in Nicaragua, tourism was perceived by participants in the study to have an impact on employment creation in their communities (Zapata et al., 2011 ). Tourism was seen to have had positive impacts on strengthening local knowledge and skills, particularly on the integration of women to new roles in the labor market. One of the main perceived gains regarding the environment was the process of raising awareness regarding the conservation of natural resources. The small scale of CBT operations and low capacity to accommodate visitors was seen as a limitation of the model.

Spenceley ( 2012 ) compiled case studies of community-based tourism in countries in southern Africa, including Botswana, Madagascar, Namibia, South Africa, Tanzania, Zambia, and Zimbabwe. In this volume, authors characterize community-based and nature-based tourism development projects in the region and demonstrate how community participation in planning and decision-making has generated benefits for local residents and supported conservation initiatives. They contend that responsible tourism practices are of particular importance in the region because of the rich biological diversity, abundant charismatic wildlife, and the critical need for local economic development and livelihood strategies.

In Kenya, CBT enterprises were not perceived to have made a significant impact on poverty reduction at an individual household level, in part because the model relied heavily on donor funding, reinforcing dependency and poverty (Manyara & Jones, 2007 ). The study identified several critical success factors for CBT enterprises, namely, awareness and sensitization, community empowerment, effective leadership, and community capacity building, which can inform appropriate tourism policy formulation in Kenya. The impacts of CBT on economic development and poverty reduction would be greatly enhanced if tourism initiatives were able to emphasize independence, address local community priorities, enhance community empowerment and transparency, discourage elitism, promote effective community leadership, and develop community capacity to operate their own enterprises more efficiently.

Pro-Poor Tourism

Pro-poor tourism is a model of tourism development that brings net benefits to people living in poverty (Ashley et al., 2001 ; Harrison, 2008 ). Although its theoretical foundations and development objectives overlap to some degree with those of community-based tourism and other models of AT, the key distinctive feature of pro-poor tourism is that it places poor people and poverty at the top of the agenda. By focusing on a very simple and incontrovertibly moral idea, namely, the net benefits of tourism to impoverished people, the concept has broad appeal to donors and international aid agencies. Harnessing the economic benefits of tourism for pro-poor growth means capitalizing on the advantages while reducing negative impacts to people living in poverty (Ashley et al., 2001 ). Pro-poor approaches to tourism development include increasing access of impoverished people to economic benefits; addressing negative social and environmental impacts associated with tourism; and focusing on policies, processes, and partnerships that seek to remove barriers to participation by people living in poverty. At the local level, pro-poor tourism can play a very significant role in livelihood security and poverty reduction (Ashley & Roe, 2002 ).

Rogerson ( 2011 ) argues that the growth of pro-poor tourism initiatives in South Africa suggests that the country has become a laboratory for the testing and evolution of new approaches toward sustainable development planning that potentially will have relevance for other countries in the developing world. A study of pro-poor tourism development initiatives in Laos identified a number of favorable conditions for pro-poor tourism development, including the fact that local people are open to tourism and motivated to participate (Suntikul et al., 2009 ). The authors also noted a lack of development in the linkages that could optimize the fulfilment of the pro-poor agenda, such as training or facilitation of local people’s participation in pro-poor tourism development at the grassroots level.

Critics of the model have argued that pro-poor tourism is based on an acceptance of the status quo of existing capitalism, that it is morally indiscriminate and theoretically imprecise, and that its practitioners are academically and commercially marginal (Harrison, 2008 ). As Chok et al. ( 2007 ) indicate, the focus “on poor people in the South reflects a strong anthropocentric view . . . and . . . environmental benefits are secondary to poor peoples’” benefits (p. 153).

Harrison ( 2008 ) argues that pro-poor tourism is not a distinctive approach to tourism as a development tool and that it may be easier to discuss what pro-poor tourism is not than what it is. He concludes that it is neither anticapitalist nor inconsistent with mainstream tourism on which it relies; it is neither a theory nor a model and is not a niche form of tourism. Further, he argues that it has no distinctive method and is not only about people living in poverty.

Slow Tourism

The concept of slow tourism has emerged as a model of sustainable tourism development, and as such, it lacks an exact definition. The concept of slow tourism traces its origin back to some institutionalized social movements such as “slow food” and “slow cities” that began in Italy in the 1990s and spread rapidly around the world (Fullagar et al., 2012 ; Oh et al., 2016 , p. 205). Advocates of slow tourism tend to emphasize slowness in terms of speed, mobility, and modes of transportation that generate less environmental pollution. They propose niche marketing for alternative forms of tourism that focus on quality upgrading rather than merely increasing the quantity of visitors via the established mass-tourism infrastructure (Conway & Timms, 2010 ).

In the context of the Caribbean region, slow tourism has been promoted as more culturally sensitive and authentic, as compared to the dominant mass tourism development model that is based on all-inclusive beach resorts dependent on foreign investment (Conway & Timms, 2010 ). Recognizing its value as an alternative marketing strategy, Conway and Timms ( 2010 ) make the case for rebranding alternative tourism in the Caribbean as a means of revitalizing the sector for the changing demands of tourists in the 21st century . They suggest that slow tourism is the antithesis of mass tourism, which “relies on increasing the quantity of tourists who move through the system with little regard to either the quality of the tourists’ experience or the benefits that accrue to the localities the tourist visits” (Conway & Timms, 2010 , p. 332). The authors draw on cases from Barbados, the Grenadines, Jamaica, and Trinidad and Tobago to characterize models of slow tourism development in remote fishing villages and communities near nature preserves and sea turtle nesting sites.

Although there is a growing interest in the concept of slow tourism in the literature, there seems to be little agreement about the exact nature of slow tourism and whether it is a niche form of special interest tourism or whether it represents a more fundamental potential shift across the industry. Conway and Timms ( 2010 ) focus on the destination, advocating for slow tourism in terms of a promotional identity for an industry in need of rebranding. Caffyn ( 2012 , p. 77) discusses the implementation of slow tourism in terms of “encouraging visitors to make slower choices when planning and enjoying their holidays.” It is not clear whether slow tourism is a marketing strategy, a mindset, or a social movement, but the literature on slow tourism nearly always equates the term with sustainable tourism (Caffyn, 2012 ; Conway & Timms, 2010 ; Oh et al., 2016 ). Caffyn ( 2012 , p. 80) suggests that slow tourism could offer a “win–win,” which she describes as “a more sustainable form of tourism; keeping more of the economic benefits within the local community and destination; and delivering a more meaningful and satisfying experience.” Research on slow tourism is nascent, and thus the contribution of slow tourism to sustainable development is not well understood.

Impacts of Tourism Development

The role of tourism in sustainable development can be examined through an understanding of the economic, environmental, and social impacts of tourism. Tourism is a global phenomenon that involves travel, recreation, the consumption of food, overnight accommodations, entertainment, sightseeing, and other activities that simultaneously intersect the lives of local residents, businesses, and communities. The impacts of tourism involve benefits and costs to all groups, and some of these impacts cannot easily be measured. Nevertheless, they have been studied extensively in the literature, which provides some context for how these benefits and costs are distributed.

Economic Impacts of Tourism

The travel and tourism sector is one of the largest components of the global economy, and global tourism has increased exponentially since the end of the Second World War (UNWTO, 2020 ). The direct, indirect, and induced economic impact of global travel accounted for 8.9 trillion U.S. dollars in contribution to the global gross domestic product (GDP), or 10.3% of global GDP. The global travel and tourism sector supports approximately 330 million jobs, or 1 in 10 jobs around the world. From an economic perspective, tourism plays a significant role in sustainable development. In many developing countries, tourism has the potential to play a unique role in income generation and distribution relative to many other industries, in part because of its high multiplier effect and consumption of local goods and services. However, research on the economic impacts of tourism has shown that this potential has rarely been fully realized (Liu, 2003 ).

Numerous studies have examined the impact of tourism expenditure on GDP, income, employment, and public sector revenue. Narayan ( 2004 ) used a computable general equilibrium model to estimate the economic impact of tourism growth on the economy of Fiji. Tourism is Fiji’s largest industry, with average annual growth of 10–12%; and as a middle-income country, tourism is critical to Fiji’s economic development. The findings indicate that an increase in tourism expenditures was associated with an increase in GDP, an improvement in the country’s balance of payments, and an increase in real consumption and national welfare. Evidence suggests that the benefits of tourism expansion outweigh any export effects caused by an appreciation of the exchange rate and an increase in domestic prices and wages.

Seetanah ( 2011 ) examined the potential contribution of tourism to economic growth and development using panel data of 19 island economies around the world from 1990 to 2007 and revealed that tourism development is an important factor in explaining economic performance in the selected island economies. The results have policy implications for improving economic growth by harnessing the contribution of the tourism sector. Pratt ( 2015 ) modeled the economic impact of tourism for seven small island developing states in the Pacific, the Caribbean, and the Indian Ocean. In most states, the transportation sector was found to have above-average linkages to other sectors of the economy. The results revealed some advantages of economies of scale for maximizing the economic contribution of tourism.

Apergis and Payne ( 2012 ) examined the causal relationship between tourism and economic growth for a panel of nine Caribbean countries. The panel of Caribbean countries includes Antigua and Barbuda, Bahamas, Dominica, Dominican Republic, Grenada, St. Kitts and Nevis, St. Lucia, St. Vincent and the Grenadines, and Trinidad and Tobago. The authors use a panel error correction model to reveal bidirectional causality between tourism and economic growth in both the short run and the long run. The presence of bidirectional causality reiterates the importance of the tourism sector in the generation of foreign exchange income and in financing the production of goods and services within these countries. Likewise, stable political institutions and adequate government policies to ensure the appropriate investment in physical and human capital will enhance economic growth. In turn, stable economic growth will provide the resources needed to develop the tourism infrastructure for the success of the countries’ tourism sector. Thus, policy makers should be cognizant of the interdependent relationship between tourism and economic growth in the design and implementation of economic policy. The mixed nature of these results suggest that the relationship between tourism and economic growth depends largely on the social and economic context as well as the role of tourism in the economy.

The economic benefits and costs of tourism are frequently distributed unevenly. An analysis of the impact of wildlife conservation policies in Zambia on household welfare found that households located near national parks earn higher levels of income from wage employment and self-employment than other rural households in the country, but they were also more likely to suffer crop losses related to wildlife conflicts (Richardson et al., 2012 ). The findings suggest that tourism development and wildlife conservation can contribute to pro-poor development, but they may be sustainable only if human–wildlife conflicts are minimized or compensated.

Environmental Impacts of Tourism

The environmental impacts of tourism are significant, ranging from local effects to contributions to global environmental change (Gössling & Peeters, 2015 ). Tourism is both dependent on water resources and a factor in global and local freshwater use. Tourists consume water for drinking, when showering and using the toilet, when participating in activities such as winter ski tourism (i.e., snowmaking), and when using swimming pools and spas. Fresh water is also needed to maintain hotel gardens and golf courses, and water use is embedded in tourism infrastructure development (e.g., accommodations, laundry, dining) and in food and fuel production. Direct water consumption in tourism is estimated to be approximately 350 liters (L) per guest night for accommodation; when indirect water use from food, energy, and transport are considered, total water use in tourism is estimated to be approximately 6,575 L per guest night, or 27,800 L per person per trip (Gössling & Peeters, 2015 ). In addition, tourism contributes to the pollution of oceans as well as lakes, rivers, and other freshwater systems (Gössling, 2002 ; Gössling et al., 2011 ).

The clearing and conversion of land is central for tourism development, and in many cases, the land used for tourism includes roads, airports, railways, accommodations, trails, pedestrian walks, shopping areas, parking areas, campgrounds, vacation homes, golf courses, marinas, ski resorts, and indirect land use for food production, disposal of solid wastes, and the treatment of wastewater (Gössling & Peeters, 2015 ). Global land use for accommodation is estimated to be approximately 42 m 2 per bed. Total global land use for tourism is estimated to be nearly 62,000 km 2 , or 11.7 m 2 per tourist; more than half of this estimate is represented by land use for traffic infrastructure.

Tourism and hospitality have direct and indirect links to nearly all aspects of food production, preparation, and consumption because of the quantities of food consumed in tourism contexts (Gössling et al., 2011 ). Food production has significant implications for sustainable development, given the growing global demand for food. The implications include land conversion, losses to biodiversity, changes in nutrient cycling, and contributions to greenhouse emissions that are associated with global climate change (Vitousek et al., 1997 ). Global food use for tourism is estimated to be approximately 39.4 megatons 1 (Mt), about 38% than the amount of food consumed at home. This equates to approximately 1,800 grams (g) of food consumed per tourist per day.

Although tourism has been promoted as a low-impact, nonextractive option for economic development, (Gössling, 2000 ), assessments reveal that such pursuits have a significant carbon footprint, as tourism is significantly more carbon intensive than other potential areas of economic development (Lenzen et al., 2018 ). Tourism is dependent on energy, and virtually all energy use in the tourism sector is derived from fossil fuels, which contribute to global greenhouse emissions that are associated with global climate change. Energy use for tourism has been estimated to be approximately 3,575 megajoules 2 (MJ) per trip, including energy for travel and accommodations (Gössling & Peeters, 2015 ). A previous estimate of global carbon dioxide (CO 2 ) emissions from tourism provided values of 1.12 gigatons 3 (Gt) of CO 2 , amounting to about 3% of global CO 2 -equivalent (CO 2 e) emissions (Gössling & Peeters, 2015 ). However, these analyses do not cover the supply chains underpinning tourism and do not therefore represent true carbon footprints. A more complete analysis of the emissions from energy consumption necessary to sustain the tourism sector would include food and beverages, infrastructure construction and maintenance, retail, and financial services. Between 2009 and 2013 , tourism’s global carbon footprint is estimated to have increased from 3.9 to 4.5 GtCO 2 e, four times more than previously estimated, accounting for about 8% of global greenhouse gas emissions (Lenzen et al., 2018 ). The majority of this footprint is exerted by and within high-income countries. The rising global demand for tourism is outstripping efforts at decarbonization of tourism operations and as a result is accelerating global carbon emissions.

Social Impacts of Tourism

The social impacts of tourism have been widely studied, with an emphasis on residents’ perceptions in the host community (Sharpley, 2014 ). Case studies include research conducted in Australia (Faulkner & Tideswell, 1997 ; Gursoy et al., 2010 ; Tovar & Lockwood, 2008 ), Belize (Diedrich & Garcia-Buades, 2008 ), China (Gu & Ryan, 2008 ), Fiji (King et al., 1993 ), Greece (Haralambopoulos & Pizam, 1996 ; Tsartas, 1992 ), Hungary (Rátz, 2000 ), Thailand (Huttasin, 2008 ), Turkey (Kuvan & Akan, 2005 ), the United Kingdom (Brunt & Courtney, 1999 ; Haley et al., 2005 ), and the United States (Andereck et al., 2005 ; Milman & Pizam, 1988 ), among others. The social impacts of tourism are difficult to measure, and most published studies are mainly concerned with the social impacts on the host communities rather than the impacts on the tourists themselves.

Studies of residents’ perceptions of tourism are typically conducted using household surveys. In most cases, residents recognize the economic dependence on tourism for income, and there is substantial evidence to suggest that working in or owning a business in tourism or a related industry is associated with more positive perceptions of tourism (Andereck et al., 2007 ). The perceived nature of negative effects is complex and often conveys a dislike of crowding, traffic congestion, and higher prices for basic needs (Deery et al., 2012 ). When the number of tourists far exceeds that of the resident population, negative attitudes toward tourism may manifest (Diedrich & Garcia-Buades, 2008 ). However, residents who recognize negative impacts may not necessarily oppose tourism development (King et al., 1993 ).

In some regions, little is known about the social and cultural impacts of tourism despite its dominance as an economic sector. Tourism is a rapidly growing sector in Cuba, and it is projected to grow at rates that exceed the average projected growth rates for the Caribbean and the world overall (Salinas et al., 2018 ). Still, even though there has been rapid tourism development in Cuba, there has been little research related to the environmental and sociocultural impacts of this tourism growth (Rutty & Richardson, 2019 ).

In some international tourism contexts, studies have found that residents are generally resentful toward tourism because it fuels inequality and exacerbates racist attitudes and discrimination (Cabezas, 2004 ; Jamal & Camargo, 2014 ; Mbaiwa, 2005 ). Other studies revealed similar narratives and recorded statements of exclusion and socioeconomic stratification (Sanchez & Adams, 2008 ). Local residents often must navigate the gaps in the racialized, gendered, and sexualized structures imposed by the global tourism industry and host-country governments (Cabezas, 2004 ).

However, during times of economic crisis, residents may develop a more permissive view as their perceptions of the costs of tourism development decrease (Garau-Vadell et al., 2018 ). This increased positive attitude is not based on an increase in the perception of positive impacts of tourism, but rather on a decrease in the perception of the negative impacts.

There is a growing body of research on Indigenous and Aboriginal tourism that emphasizes justice issues such as human rights and self-empowerment, control, and participation of traditional owners in comanagement of destinations (Jamal & Camargo, 2014 ; Ryan & Huyton, 2000 ; Whyte, 2010 ).

Sustainability of Tourism

A process or system is said to be sustainable to the extent that it is robust, resilient, and adaptive (Anderies et al., 2013 ). By most measures, the global tourism system does not meet these criteria for sustainability. Tourism is not robust in that it cannot resist threats and perturbations, such as economic shocks, public health pandemics, war, and other disruptions. Tourism is not resilient in that it does not easily recover from failures, such as natural disasters or civil unrest. Furthermore, tourism is not adaptive in that it is often unable to change in response to external conditions. One example that underscores the failure to meet all three criteria is the dependence of tourism on fossil fuels for transportation and energy, which are key inputs for tourism development. This dependence itself is not sustainable (Wheeller, 2007 ), and thus the sustainability of tourism is questionable.

Liu ( 2003 ) notes that research related to the role of tourism in sustainable development has emphasized supply-side concepts such as sustaining tourism resources and ignored the demand side, which is particularly vulnerable to social and economic shocks. Tourism is vulnerable to both localized and global shocks. Studies of the vulnerability of tourism to localized shocks include disaster vulnerability in coastal Thailand (Calgaro & Lloyd, 2008 ), bushfires in northeast Victoria in Australia (Cioccio & Michael, 2007 ), forest fires in British Columbia, Canada (Hystad & Keller, 2008 ); and outbreak of foot and mouth disease in the United Kingdom (Miller & Ritchie, 2003 ).

Like most other economic sectors, tourism is vulnerable to the impacts of earthquakes, particularly in areas where tourism infrastructure may not be resilient to such shocks. Numerous studies have examined the impacts of earthquake events on tourism, including studies of the aftermath of the 1997 earthquake in central Italy (Mazzocchi & Montini, 2001 ), the 1999 earthquake in Taiwan (Huan et al., 2004 ; Huang & Min, 2002 ), and the 2008 Wenchuan earthquake in western Sichuan, China (Yang et al., 2011 ), among others.

Tourism is vulnerable to extreme weather events. Regional economic strength has been found to be associated with lower vulnerability to natural disasters. Kim and Marcoullier ( 2015 ) examined the vulnerability and resilience of 10 tourism-based regional economies that included U.S. national parks or protected seashores situated on the Gulf of Mexico or Atlantic Ocean coastline that were affected by several hurricanes over a 26-year period. Regions with stronger economic characteristics prior to natural disasters were found to have lower disaster losses than regions with weaker economies.

Tourism is extremely sensitive to oil spills, whatever their origin, and the volume of oil released need not be large to generate significant economic losses (Cirer-Costa, 2015 ). Studies of the vulnerability of tourism to the localized shock of an oil spill include research on the impacts of oil spills in Alaska (Coddington, 2015 ), Brazil (Ribeiro et al., 2020 ), Spain (Castanedo et al., 2009 ), affected regions in the United States along the Gulf of Mexico (Pennington-Gray et al., 2011 ; Ritchie et al., 2013 ), and the Republic of Korea (Cheong, 2012 ), among others. Future research on the vulnerability of tourist destinations to oil spills should also incorporate freshwater environments, such as lakes, rivers, and streams, where the rupture of oil pipelines is more frequent.

Significant attention has been paid to assessing the vulnerability of tourist destinations to acts of terrorism and the impacts of terrorist attacks on regional tourist economies (Liu & Pratt, 2017 ). Such studies include analyses of the impacts of terrorist attacks on three European countries, Greece, Italy, and Austria (Enders et al., 1992 ); the impact of the 2001 terrorist attacks on the United States (Goodrich, 2002 ); terrorism and tourism in Nepal (Bhattarai et al., 2005 ); vulnerability of tourism livelihoods in Bali (Baker & Coulter, 2007 ); the impact of terrorism on tourist preferences for destinations in the Mediterranean and the Canary Islands (Arana & León, 2008 ); the 2011 massacres in Olso and Utøya, Norway (Wolff & Larsen, 2014 ); terrorism and political violence in Tunisia (Lanouar & Goaied, 2019 ); and the impact of terrorism on European tourism (Corbet et al., 2019 ), among others. Pizam and Fleischer ( 2002 ) studied the impact of acts of terrorism on tourism demand in Israel between May 1991 and May 2001 , and they confirmed that the frequency of acts of terrorism had caused a larger decline in international tourist arrivals than the severity of these acts. Most of these are ex post studies, and future assessments of the underlying conditions of destinations could reveal a deeper understanding of the vulnerability of tourism to terrorism.

Tourism is vulnerable to economic crisis, both local economic shocks (Okumus & Karamustafa, 2005 ; Stylidis & Terzidou, 2014 ) and global economic crisis (Papatheodorou et al., 2010 ; Smeral, 2010 ). Okumus and Karamustafa ( 2005 ) evaluated the impact of the February 2001 economic crisis in Turkey on tourism, and they found that the tourism industry was poorly prepared for the economic crisis despite having suffered previous impacts related to the Gulf War in the early 1990s, terrorism in Turkey in the 1990s, the civil war in former Yugoslavia in the early 1990s, an internal economic crisis in 1994 , and two earthquakes in the northwest region of Turkey in 1999 . In a study of the attitudes and perceptions of citizens of Greece, Stylidis and Terzidou ( 2014 ) found that economic crisis is associated with increased support for tourism development, particularly out of self-interest. Economic crisis diminishes residents’ concern for environmental issues. In a study of the behavior of European tourists amid an economic crisis, Eugenio-Martin and Campos-Soria ( 2014 ) found that the probability of households cutting back on travel expenditures depends largely on the climate and economic conditions of tourists’ home countries, and households that do reduce travel spending engage in tourism closer to home.

Becken and Lennox ( 2012 ) studied the implications of a long-term increase in oil prices for tourism in New Zealand, and they estimate that a doubling of oil prices is associated with a 1.7% decrease in real gross national disposable income and a 9% reduction in the real value of tourism exports. Chatziantoniou et al. ( 2013 ) investigated the relationship among oil price shocks, tourism variables, and economic indicators in four European Mediterranean countries and found that aggregate demand oil price shocks generated a lagged effect on tourism-generated income and economic growth. Kisswani et al. ( 2020 ) examined the asymmetric effect of oil prices on tourism receipts and the sensitive susceptibility of tourism to oil price changes using nonlinear analysis. The findings document a long-run asymmetrical effect for most countries, after incorporating the structural breaks, suggesting that governments and tourism businesses and organizations should interpret oil price fluctuations cautiously.

Finally, the sustainability of tourism has been shown to be vulnerable to the outbreak of infectious diseases, including the impact of the Ebola virus on tourism in sub-Saharan Africa (Maphanga & Henama, 2019 ; Novelli et al., 2018 ) and in the United States (Cahyanto et al., 2016 ). The literature also includes studies of the impact of swine flu on tourism demand in Brunei (Haque & Haque, 2018 ), Mexico (Monterrubio, 2010 ), and the United Kingdom (Page et al., 2012 ), among others. In addition, rapid assessments of the impacts of the novel coronavirus SARS-CoV-2 have documented severe disruptions and cessations of tourism because of unprecedented global travel restrictions and widespread restrictions on public gatherings (Gössling et al., 2020 ; Qiu et al., 2020 ; Sharma & Nicolau, 2020 ). Hotels, airlines, cruise lines, and car rentals have all experienced a significant decrease globally because of the COVID-19 pandemic, and the shock to the industry is significant enough to warrant concerns about the long-term outlook (Sharma & Nicolau, 2020 ). Qiu et al. ( 2020 ) estimated the social costs of the pandemic to tourism in three cities in China (Hong Kong, Guangzhou, and Wuhan), and they found that most respondents were willing to pay for risk reduction and action in responding to the pandemic crisis; there was no significant difference between residents’ willingness to pay in the three cities. Some research has emphasized how lessons from the COVID-19 pandemic can prepare global tourism for an economic transformation that is needed to mitigate the impacts of climate change (Brouder, 2020 ; Prideaux et al., 2020 ).

It is clear that tourism has contributed significantly to economic development globally, but its role in sustainable development is uncertain, contested, and potentially paradoxical. This is due, in part, to the contested nature of sustainable development itself. Tourism has been promoted as a low-impact, nonextractive option for economic development, particularly for developing countries (Gössling, 2000 ), and many countries have managed to increase their participation in the global economy through development of international tourism. Tourism development has been viewed as an important sector for investment to enhance economic growth, poverty alleviation, and food security, and the sector provides an alternative opportunity to large-scale development projects and extractive industries that contribute to emissions of pollutants and threaten biodiversity and cultural values. However, global evidence from research on the economic impacts of tourism has shown that this potential has rarely been realized (Liu, 2003 ).

The role of tourism in sustainable development has been studied extensively and with a variety of perspectives, including the conceptualization of alternative or responsible forms of tourism and the examination of economic, environmental, and social impacts of tourism development. The research has generally concluded that tourism development has contributed to sustainable development in some cases where it is demonstrated to have provided support for biodiversity conservation initiatives and livelihood development strategies. As an economic sector, tourism is considered to be labor intensive, providing opportunities for poor households to enhance their livelihood through the sale of goods and services to foreign tourists.

Nature-based tourism approaches such as ecotourism and community-based tourism have been successful at attracting tourists to parks and protected areas, and their spending provides financial support for biodiversity conservation, livelihoods, and economic growth in developing countries. Nevertheless, studies of the impacts of tourism development have documented negative environmental impacts locally in terms of land use, food and water consumption, and congestion, and globally in terms of the contribution of tourism to climate change through the emission of greenhouse gases related to transportation and other tourist activities. Studies of the social impacts of tourism have documented experiences of discrimination based on ethnicity, gender, race, sex, and national identity.

The sustainability of tourism as an economic sector has been examined in terms of its vulnerability to civil conflict, economic shocks, natural disasters, and public health pandemics. Most studies conclude that tourism may have positive impacts for regional development and environmental conservation, but there is evidence that tourism inherently generates negative environmental impacts, primarily through pollutions stemming from transportation. The regional benefits of tourism development must be considered alongside the global impacts of increased transportation and tourism participation. Global tourism has also been shown to be vulnerable to economic crises, oil price shocks, and global outbreaks of infectious diseases. Given that tourism is dependent on energy, the movement of people, and the consumption of resources, virtually all tourism activities have significant economic, environmental, and sustainable impacts. As such, the role of tourism in sustainable development is highly questionable. Future research on the role of tourism in sustainable development should focus on reducing the negative impacts of tourism development, both regionally and globally.

Overtourism Effects: Positive and Negative Impacts for Sustainable Development

Living reference work entry
First Online: 02 October 2020
Cite this living reference work entry

Ivana Damnjanović 7

Part of the book series: Encyclopedia of the UN Sustainable Development Goals ((ENUNSDG))

264 Accesses

1 Citations

Responsible tourism ; Tourism overcrowding ; Tourism-phobia ; Tourist-phobia

Definitions

Tourism today is paradoxically dominated by two opposite aspects: its sustainable character and overtourism. Since its creation by Skift in 2016 (Ali 2016 ), the term “overtourism” has been a buzzword in media and academic circles, although it may only be a new word for a problem discussed over the past three decades.

Overtourism is a complex and multifaceted phenomenon destructive to tourism resources and harmful to destination communities’ well-being through overcrowding and overuse (Center for Responsible Travel 2018 ; International Ecotourism Society 2019 ) as certain locations at times cannot withstand physical, ecological, social, economic, psychological, and/or political pressures of tourism (Peeters et al. 2018 ). Overtourism is predominantly a problem producing deteriorated quality of life of local communities (Responsible Tourism n.d. ; The International Ecotourism Society 2019 ; UNWTO 2018...

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this chapter

Institutional subscriptions

Ali R (2016) ‘Exploring the coming perils of over tourism’, Skift, 23-08-2016 (online). Available at: www.skift.com (10-09-2019)

Google Scholar

Bowitz E, Ibenholt K (2009) Economic impacts of cultural heritage – research and perspectives. J Cult Herit 10(1):1–8. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.culher.2008.09.002

Article Google Scholar

Center for Responsible Travel – CREST (2018) The case for responsible travel: Trends & Statistics 2018. Retrieved from https://www.responsibletravel.org

Center for Responsible Travel – CREST (n.d.) Center for Responsible Travel. Retrieved 11 Sept 2019, from https://www.responsibletravel.org/

Cheer JM, Milano C, Novelli M (2019) Tourism and community resilience in the anthropocene: accentuating temporal overtourism. J Sustain Tour 27:554–572. https://doi.org/10.1080/09669582.2019.1578363

Croes R, Manuel A, Rivera KJ, Semrad KJ, Khalilzadeh J (2017) Happiness and tourism: evidence from Aruba. Retrieved from the dick pope Sr. Institute for Tourism Studies website. https://doi.org/10.13140/RG.2.2.29257.85602

Epler Wood M, Milstein M, Ahamed-Broadhurst K (2019) Destinations at risk: the invisible burden of tourism. The Travel Foundation

Giulietti, S., Romagosa, F., Fons Esteve, J., & Schröder, C. (2018). Tourism and the environment: towards a reporting mechanism in Europe (ETC/ULS report |01/2018). Retrieved from European Environment Agency website: http://www.sepa.gov.rs/download/strano/ETC_TOUERM_report_2018.pdf

Global Sustainable Tourism Council – GSTC (2017) Official website. Retrieved August 23, 2019, from https://www.gstcouncil.org/

Goodwin, H. (2017) The challenge of overtourism (working paper). Responsible tourism partnership. Available at https://haroldgoodwin.info/pubs/RTP'WP4Overtourism01'2017.pdf

Interagency Visitor Use Management Council (2016) Visitor use management framework: a guide to providing sustainable outdoor recreation, 1st edn

Jordan P, Pastras P, Psarros M (2018) Managing tourism growth in Europe: the ECM toolbox. Retrieved from European Cities Marketing website: https://www.ucm.es/data/cont/media/www/pag-107272/2018-Managing%20Tourism%20Growth%20in%20Europe%20The%20ECM%20Toolbox.pdf

Kim D, Lee C, Sirgy MJ (2016) Examining the differential impact of human crowding versus spatial crowding on visitor satisfaction at a festival. J Travel Tour Mark 33(3):293–312. https://doi.org/10.1080/10548408.2015.1024914

Leung Y, Spenceley A, Hvenegaard G, Buckley, R, Groves C (eds) (2018) Tourism and visitor management in protected areas: guidelines for sustainability. Best practice protected area guidelines series, vol 27. IUCN, Gland. Retrieved from https://doi.org/10.2305/IUCN.CH.2018.PAG.27.en

Li L, Zhang J, Nian S, Zhang H (2017) Tourists’ perceptions of crowding, attractiveness, and satisfaction: a second-order structural model. Asia Pac J Tour Res 22(12):1250–1260. https://doi.org/10.1080/10941665.2017.1391305

Milano C (2017) Overtourism and tourismphobia: global trends and local contexts. Retrieved from Barcelona: Ostelea School of Tourism and Hospitality website. https://doi.org/10.13140/RG.2.2.13463.88481

Book Google Scholar

Milano C, Novelli M, Cheer JM (2019) Overtourism and tourismphobia: a journey through four decades of tourism development, planning and local concerns. Tour Plan Dev 16(4):353–357. Retrieved from. https://doi.org/10.1080/21568316.2019.1599604

Muler Gonzalez V, Coromina L, Galí N (2018) Overtourism: residents’ perceptions of tourism impact as an indicator of resident social carrying capacity – case study of a Spanish heritage town. Tour Rev 73(3):277–296. https://doi.org/10.1108/tr-08-2017-0138

Oklevik O, Gössling S, Hall CM, Steen Jacobsen JK, Grøtte IP, McCabe S (2019) Overtourism, optimisation, and destination performance indicators: a case study of activities in fjord Norway. J Sustain Tour:1–21. https://doi.org/10.1080/09669582.2018.1533020

Peeters P, Gössling S, Klijs J, Milano C, Novelli M, Dijkmans C, Eijgelaar E, Hartman S, Heslinga J, Isaac R, Mitas O, Moretti S, Nawijn J, Papp B, Postma A (2018) Research for TRAN committee – overtourism: impact and possible policy responses. European Parliament, Policy Department for Structural and Cohesion Policies, Brussels

Perkumienė D, Pranskūnienė R (2019) Overtourism: between the right to travel and residents’ rights. Sustainability 11(7):21–38. https://doi.org/10.3390/su11072138

Popp M (2012) Positive and negative urban tourist crowding: Florence, Italy. Tour Geogr 14(1):50–72. https://doi.org/10.1080/14616688.2011.597421

Responsible Tourism (n.d.) Over Tourism (online). Available at: www.responsibletourismpartnership.org/overtourism

Seraphin H, Sheeran P, Pilato M (2018) Over-tourism and the fall of Venice as a destination. J Destin Mark Manag 9:374–376. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jdmm.2018.01.011

Souza T, Thapa B, Rodrigues CG, Imori D (2018) Economic impacts of tourism in protected areas of Brazil. J Sustain Tour 27(6):735–749. https://doi.org/10.1080/09669582.2017.1408633

Spenceley A, Snyman S, Rylance A (2017) Revenue sharing from tourism in terrestrial African protected areas. J Sustain Tour 27(6):720–734. https://doi.org/10.1080/09669582.2017.1401632

The International Ecotourism Society (2019) Ecotourism is the solution to Overtourism. Retrieved 10 Sept 2019, from https://ecotourism.org/news/ecotourism-is-the-solution-to-overtourism/

The Travel Foundation. (2016). What is sustainable tourism? . Retrieved 13 July 2020, from https://www.thetravelfoundation.org.uk/resources-categories/what-is-sustainable-tourism/

Thomas, C. C., Koontz, L., and Cornachione, E. (2018). 2017 National park visitor spending effects: economic contributions to local communities, states, and the nation. Retrieved from U.S. Department of the Interior, National Park Service website: https://www.nps.gov/nature/customcf/NPS_Data_Visualization/docs/NPS_2017_Visitor_Spending_Effects.pdf

UN World Tourism Organization (2018a) Tourism for SDGs platform. Retrieved 13 Sept 2019, from http://tourism4sdgs.org/

UN World Tourism Organization (2018b) Measuring sustainable tourism. Retrieved from http://statistics.unwto.org/mst

UN World Tourism Organization (2018c) UNWTO tourism highlights, 2018 edition. UNWTO, Madrid, p 4. https://doi.org/10.18111/9789284419876

UN World Tourism Organization; Centre of Expertise Leisure, Tourism & Hospitality; NHTV Breda University of Applied Sciences; and NHL Stenden University of Applied Sciences (2018d), ‘Overtourism’? – Understanding and Managing Urban Tourism Growth beyond Perceptions, Executive Summary, UNWTO, Madrid. https://doi.org/10.18111/9789284420070

UN World Tourism Organization (2019). ‘Key tourism figures’, infographic (online). Available at http://www2.unwto.org

UN World Tourism Organization; Centre of Expertise Leisure, Tourism & Hospitality; NHTV Breda University of Applied Sciences; and NHL Stenden University of Applied Sciences (2018) ‘Overtourism’? – understanding and managing urban tourism growth beyond perceptions, executive summary. UNWTO, Madrid. https://doi.org/10.18111/9789284420070

UNEP and UNWTO (2005) Making tourism more sustainable: a guide for policy makers. World Tourism Organization Publications, Madrid

United Nations (2018) About the sustainable development goals. Retrieved 13 Sept 2019, from http://www.un.org/sustainabledevelopment/sustainable-development-goals/

UNWTO (2004) Tourism congestion management at natural and cultural sites. World Tourism Organization Publications, Madrid

Waller I (2011) Less law, more order. Acta Criminologica South Afr J Criminol 24(1):I–IV. Retrieved from https://hdl.handle.net/10520/EJC29060

World Travel & Tourism Council (2019) Global Economic Impact & Trends 2019 (march 2019). Available at https://www.wttc.org/economic-impact/country-analysis/

World Travel & Tourism Council (WTTC) and McKinsey Company (2017) Coping with success: managing overcrowding in tourism destinations. Retrieved from https://www.wttc.org/-/media/files/reports/policy-research/coping-with-success%2D%2D-managing-overcrowding-in-tourism-destinations-2017.pdf

WWF – World Wide Fund For Nature (2019) Blue planet: coasts. Retrieved 12 Sept 2019, from http://wwf.panda.org/our_work/oceans/coasts/

Zehrer A, Raich F (2016) The impact of perceived crowding on customer satisfaction. Retrieved from. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jhtm.2016.06.007

Download references

Author information

Authors and affiliations.

Faculty of Health and Business Studies, Singidunum University, Valjevo, Serbia

Ivana Damnjanović

You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Ivana Damnjanović .

Editor information

Editors and affiliations.

European School of Sustainability, Hamburg University of Applied Sciences, Hamburg, Hamburg, Germany

Walter Leal Filho

Center for Neuroscience & Cell Biology, University of Coimbra, Coimbra, Portugal

Anabela Marisa Azul

Faculty of Engineering and Architecture, Passo Fundo University Faculty of Engineering and Architecture, Passo Fundo, Brazil

Luciana Brandli

HAW Hamburg, Hamburg, Hamburg, Germany

Amanda Lange Salvia

International Centre for Thriving, University of Chester, Chester, UK

Section Editor information

Department of Health Professions, Manchester Metropolitan University, Manchester, UK

Haruna Musa Moda

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

Copyright information

About this entry

Cite this entry.

Damnjanović, I. (2020). Overtourism Effects: Positive and Negative Impacts for Sustainable Development. In: Leal Filho, W., Azul, A.M., Brandli, L., Lange Salvia, A., Wall, T. (eds) Industry, Innovation and Infrastructure. Encyclopedia of the UN Sustainable Development Goals. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-71059-4_112-1

Download citation

DOI : https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-71059-4_112-1

Received : 10 October 2019

Accepted : 16 October 2019

Published : 02 October 2020

Publisher Name : Springer, Cham

Print ISBN : 978-3-319-71059-4

Online ISBN : 978-3-319-71059-4

eBook Packages : Springer Reference Earth and Environm. Science Reference Module Physical and Materials Science Reference Module Earth and Environmental Sciences

Publish with us

Policies and ethics

Find a journal
Track your research

Thank you for visiting nature.com. You are using a browser version with limited support for CSS. To obtain the best experience, we recommend you use a more up to date browser (or turn off compatibility mode in Internet Explorer). In the meantime, to ensure continued support, we are displaying the site without styles and JavaScript.

View all journals
My Account Login
Explore content
About the journal
Publish with us
Sign up for alerts
Open access
Published: 31 May 2023

Eco-tourism, climate change, and environmental policies: empirical evidence from developing economies

Yunfeng Shang 1 ,
Chunyu Bi 2 ,
Xinyu Wei 2 ,
Dayang Jiang 2 ,
Farhad Taghizadeh-Hesary ORCID: orcid.org/0000-0001-5446-7093 3 , 4 &
Ehsan Rasoulinezhad ORCID: orcid.org/0000-0002-7726-1757 5

Humanities and Social Sciences Communications volume 10 , Article number: 275 ( 2023 ) Cite this article

8516 Accesses

7 Citations

1 Altmetric

Metrics details

Environmental studies

Developing ecotourism services is a suitable solution to help developing countries improve the status of sustainable development indicators and protect their environment. The primary purpose of this paper is to find out the effects of green governance variables and carbon dioxide emissions on ecotourism for 40 developing economies from 2010 to 2021. The results confirmed a uni-directional causal relationship between the green governance indicator and the inflation rate of the ecotourism indicator. In addition, with a 1% improvement in the green governance index of developing countries, the ecotourism of these countries will increase by 0.43%. In comparison, with a 1% increase in the globalization index of these countries, ecotourism will increase by 0.32%. Moreover, ecotourism in developing countries is more sensitive to macroeconomic variables changes than in developed economies. Geopolitical risk is an influential factor in the developing process of ecotourism. The practical policies recommended by this research are developing the green financing market, establishing virtual tourism, granting green loans to small and medium enterprises, and government incentives to motivate active businesses.

Comprehensive green growth indicators across countries and territories

Role of foreign direct Investment and political openness in boosting the eco-tourism sector for achieving sustainability

Ways to bring private investment to the tourism industry for green growth

Introduction.

The challenge of climate change has become a primary threat to living on the Earth in the last centuries (Rasoulinzhad and Taghizadeh-Hesary, 2022 ). Many meetings of the countries at the regional and international level are held on the topics of environment and climate change. Regardless of environmental issues, population growth, and the lack of control of greenhouse gas emissions, industrialization has been the most crucial cause of the climate change crisis. Chao and Feng ( 2018 ) address human activity as the leading cause of climate change and express that this challenge is a potential threat to living on Earth. Woodward ( 2019 ) argued that climate change threats include the rise in global temperature, the melting of polar ice caps, and unprecedented disease outbreaks. Therefore, urgent policies and solutions are essential to control and lower the risk of global change. One of the signs of climate change is the increase in the average temperature of the Earth’s surface. Figure 1 shows the temperature data from 1910 to 2021 for the four continents of Asia, Europe, Africa, and North America.

Source: Authors from NOAA ( https://www.ncei.noaa.gov/access/monitoring/climate-at-a-glance/global/time-series ).

The data in Fig. 1 shows that the air temperature has increased significantly over the past century, which has been more prominent in Asia and Europe. In 2021, we saw a decrease in temperature changes due to the spread of the Corona disease and a decrease in the rate of greenhouse gas emissions. However, the role of the Asian continent in increasing the global temperature has been more than other continents due to its large population and excessive consumption of fossil fuels.

During the past decades, the world’s countries have tried to formulate and implement various environmental policies collectively in the form of agreements or separately to fight environmental threats. Regarding international agreements, such things as the Paris Agreement of 2015, the Kyoto Protocol of 1997, the Montreal Protocol of 1987, and the Vienna Convention on the Protection of the Ozone Layer in 1985 can be addressed whose primary purpose is to integrate the goals and motivation of the international community to the world’s environmental threats. However, a group of earlier studies, such as Zheng et al. ( 2017 ), Takashima ( 2018 ), and Roelfsema et al. ( 2022 ), emphasized the inefficiency of these global agreements, especially after the left the USA from the Paris Agreement on 1 June 2017. The most important cause of this inefficiency has been the need for more motivation of countries to fulfill their international obligations towards environmental issues. However, many governments consider the threat of climate change only within their geographical boundaries and have tried to formulate and implement green policies to advance their environmental protection goals. These policies include green financial policies (green taxes, green subsidies), monetary policies (such as green loans and green financing), and cultural and social policies in line with sustainable development. The ultimate goal of these green policies is a green economy, an environmentally friendly economy, a zero carbon economy, or a sustainable economy. Lee et al. ( 2022 ) define the green economy as a broad concept comprising green industry, agriculture, and services. Centobelli et al. ( 2022 ) express that environmental sustainability should be more attention in the service sector owing to its penetration into social life and interactions.

Tourism and travel-related services are among countries’ main parts of the service sector. By creating the flow of tourists, tourism services can lead to capital transfer, job creation, cultural exchange (globalization), and increasing welfare in the country hosting the tours. According to the Yearbook of Tourism Statistics published by the World Tourism Organization, international tourism has increased from 522.2 billion US dollars in 1995 to nearly 1.86 trillion US dollars in 2019. This increase shows the importance of tourism services in generating income for countries, especially in the era of Corona and post-corona. Casado-Aranda et al. ( 2021 ) express that tourism services can be a central driver of economic growth recovery in post COVID era. Jeyacheya and Hampton ( 2022 ) argue that tourism can make high incomes for host countries leading to job creation and economic flourishing in destination cities for tourists.

An important issue mentioned in the corona era and relies on the post-corona era is the revitalizing of green economic growth. An important issue mentioned in the corona era and relying on the post-corona era is the revitalizing green economic growth (Bai et al., 2022 ; Werikhe, 2022 ), an opportunity that countries should pay more attention to in order to rebuild their economic activities. In other words, countries should plan their return to economic prosperity with environmental issues in mind. To this end, the issue of tourism finds a branch called Ecotourism or sustainable tourism which has environmental concerns and tries to help countries to improve environmental protection policies. Ecotourism is an approach based on environmental criteria, which is opposed to over-tourism (a type of tourism that disrupts the protection of the environment and destroys natural resources). The International Ecotourism Society defines Ecotourism as an efficient way to conserve the environment and improve local people’s well-being. It can be said that Ecotourism, along with various economic advantages (income generation, job creation, globalization, poverty alleviation), will bring environmental protection to the world’s countries, achieving the goals of green economic growth recovery and sustainable development. Xu et al. ( 2022 ) consider Ecotourism as one of the essential components of achieving sustainable development in the post-corona era.

Ecotourism in developing countries has more priorities compared to developed economies. Firstly, developing countries are often countries with financial problems of the government, and the governments in these countries need more capital to advance sustainable development goals. Therefore, developing ecotourism services can be a suitable solution to help these countries improve the status of sustainable development indicators and protect their environment. Second, due to the spread of the Corona disease, developing countries have experienced numerous bankruptcy in the tourism services sector. Therefore, promoting ecotourism in these countries is of great importance in the post-corona era. Third, developing countries have a high share in the emission of greenhouse gases in the world due to their high dependence on fossil fuels and the lack of advanced green technologies. Fourth, due to bureaucratic processes, high cost, and lack of market transparency, greenwashing may happen in developing economies’ ecotourism industry, meaning that a company serving ecotourism services makes its activities seem more sustainable and ethical than they are. The term “greenwashing” can harshly impact the future development path of the ecotourism industry in developing economies. According to the reasons mentioned above, developing ecotourism in developing countries can be an essential factor in controlling and reducing greenhouse gas emissions in these countries.

This paper tries to contribute to the existing literature from the following aspects:

Calculating the ecotourism index for selected countries based on the criteria for measuring sustainable tourism stated by the World Tourism Organization in the United Nations. Considering that there is no specific index for ecotourism, the calculation of ecotourism in this article will be innovative.

Measuring the green governance index as a proxy for environmental policies for selected countries based on the Environment Social and Governance (ESG) data.

Selecting a sample of 40 developing countries from different geographical regions to calculate the interconnections between ecotourism, green governance, and climate change

Making a further discussion to address the role of uncertainty and the developing level of countries in the relationship between ecotourism and explanatory variables.

The main results confirm the existence of a uni-directional causal relationship running from the green governance indicator and inflation rate to the ecotourism indicator. In addition, with a 1% improvement in the green governance index of developing countries, the ecotourism of these countries will increase by 0.43%. A 1% increase in the globalization index of these countries accelerates ecotourism by 0.32%.

Moreover, ecotourism in developing countries is more sensitive to macroeconomic variables changes than in developed economies. Geopolitical risk is an influential factor in the developing process of ecotourism. The practical policies recommended by this research are developing the green financing market, establishing virtual tourism, granting green loans to small and medium enterprises, and government incentives to motivate active businesses.

The paper in continue is organized as follows: section “Literature review” provides a short literature review to determine the gaps this research seeks to fill. Section “Data and model specification” argues data and model specification. The following section represents empirical results. Section “Discussion” expresses discussion, whereas the last section provides conclusions, policy implications, research limitations, and recommendations to research further.

Literature review

This part of the article analyzes and classifies the previous literature on ecotourism and sustainable development in a rational and structured way. The importance of tourism in economic growth and development has been discussed in previous studies. However, the study of the effect of tourism on climate change has received little attention. Especially the relationship between sustainable tourism, climate change, and environmental policies is a problem that has yet to receive the attention of academic experts.

A group of previous studies has focused on the place of tourism in economic development and growth. Holzner ( 2011 ) focused on the consequences of tourism development on the economic performance of 134 countries from 1970 to 2007. They found out that excessive dependence on tourism income leads to Dutch disease in the economy, and other economic sectors need to develop to the extent of the tourism sector. In another study, Sokhanvar et al. ( 2018 ) investigated the causal link between tourism and economic growth in emerging economies from 1995 to 2014. The main results confirmed that the linkage is country-dependent. Brida et al. ( 2020 ) studied 80 economies from 1995 to 2016 to determine how tourism and economic development are related. The paper’s conclusions highlighted tourism’s-positive role in economic activities.

Another group of previous studies has linked tourism to sustainability targets. Sorensen and Grindsted ( 2021 ) expressed that nature tourism development has a positive and direct impact on achieving sustainable development goals of countries. In a new study, Li et al. ( 2022 ) studied the impacts of tourism development on life quality (as one of the sustainable development goals defined by the UN in 2015) in the case of Japan. They found that tourism development positively impacts the quality of life of age groups in the country. Ahmad et al. ( 2022 ) explored the role of tourism in the sustainability of G7 economies from 2000–2019. The primary findings revealed the positive impact of tourism arrivals on sustainable economic development. Zekan et al. ( 2022 ) investigated the impact of tourism on regional sustainability in Europe. They concluded that tourism development increases transport, leading to increased carbon dioxide emissions. Therefore, tourism development causes environmental pollution.

Tourism that can pay attention to environmental issues is called “ecotourism.” Many new studies have studied different dimensions of ecotourism. Lu et al. ( 2021 ) expanded the concept of the ecotourism industry. The significant results expressed that smart tourist cities are essential for efficient ecotourism in countries. Thompson ( 2022 ) expressed the characteristics of ecotourism development through survey methodology. The results confirmed the importance of transparent regulations, government support, and social intention to promote ecotourism. In another study, Heshmati et al. ( 2022 ) employed the SWOT analysis method to explore the critical success factors of ecotourism development in Iran. They found that legal documentation and private participation are major influential factors in promoting ecotourism in Iran. In line with the previous research, Hosseini et al. ( 2021 ) tried to explore the influential factors in promoting ecotourism in Iran by employing a SWOT analysis. They depicted that attracting investors is essential to enhance ecotourism projects in Iran. Hasana et al. ( 2022 ) reviewed research to analyze the earlier studies about ecotourism. The conclusions expressed that ecotourism is necessary for environmental protection. However, it is a challenging plan for the government, and they should carry out various policies toward ecotourism development. Kunjuraman et al. ( 2022 ) studied the role of ecotourism on rural community development in Malaysia. The significant results confirmed that ecotourism could transfer-positive impacts.

Several earlier studies have concentrated on the characteristics of ecotourism in different developed and developing economies. For example, Ruhanen ( 2019 ) investigated the ecotourism status in Australia. The paper concluded that the country could potentially make a larger share of ecotourism to the entire local tourism industry. Jin et al. ( 2022 ) studied the role of local community power on green tourism in Japan. They concluded that the concept of agricultural village activity and regional support positively influences the development of green tourism in Japan as a developed economy. Choi et al. ( 2022 ) sought to find aspects of ecotourism development in South Korea. The preliminary results confirmed the importance of green governance and efficient regulation to promote a sustainable tourism industry. Baloch et al. ( 2022 ) explored the ecotourism specifications in the developing economy of Pakistan. They found that Pakistan’s ecotourism needs government support and the social well-being of the visited cities. Sun et al. ( 2022 ) studied ecotourism in China. They concluded that there is imbalanced development of ecotourism among Chinese provinces due to the need for more capital to invest in all ecotourism projects throughout the Chinese cities. Tajer and Demir ( 2022 ) analyzed the ecotourism strategy in Iran. They concluded that despite various potentials in the country, insufficient capital, lack of social awareness, and political tension are the major obstacles to promoting a sustainable tourism industry in Iran.

Another group of earlier studies has drawn attention to promoting eco-tourism in the post COVID era. They believe that the corona disease has created an excellent opportunity to pay more attention to environmental issues and that countries should move towards sustainable development concepts such as sustainable (eco) tourism in the post-corona era. Soliku et al. ( 2021 ) studied eco-tourism in Ghana during the pandemic. The findings depicted the vague impacts of a pandemic on eco-tourism. Despite the short-term negative consequence of the pandemic on eco-tourism, it provides various opportunities for developing this sector in Ghana. Hosseini et al. ( 2021 ) employed the Fuzzy Dematel technique to find solutions for promoting eco-tourism during COVID-19. They found out that planning to increase the capacity of eco-tourism and incentive policies by governments can help promote the eco-tourism aspect under the pandemic’s consequences. Abedin et al. ( 2022 ) studied the consequence of COVID-19 on coastal eco-tourism development. The primary findings confirmed the negative impacts of a pandemic on the development of eco-tourism.

A review of previous studies shows that tourism can positively impact green growth and sustainable development. Sustainable tourism can be used as a policy to deal with the threat of climate change. This issue needs more attention in the corona and post-corona eras. Because in the post-corona era, many countries have sought to revive green economic growth, and ecotourism can be one of the tools to achieve it. As observed, a detailed study of the relationship between climate change, ecotourism, and environmental policies has yet to be done. Therefore, this research will address and fill this literature gap.

Data and model specification

Data description.

The paper seeks to find the relationship between climate change, ecotourism, and environmental policy for the panel of 40 developing economies from different regions from 2010 to 2021 (480 observations). The sample size could have been more extensive due to the lack of information on some variables. However, there are 480 observations in the data analysis of the data panel; therefore, the number of samples selected is acceptable.

To determine the proxies for main variables, CO2 emissions per capita are selected as the proxy for climate change. Many earlier studies (e.g., Espoir et al., 2022 ) have employed this variable as an appropriate variable representing the status of climate change. Regarding ecotourism, the World Tourism Organization proposed some measurements of sustainable tourism, and also following Yusef et al. ( 2014 ), the entropy weight method is employed to calculate a multi-dimensional ecotourism indicator comprising per capita green park area (square meters), gross domestic tourism revenue (US dollars), the ratio of good air quality (%), green transport, renewable water resources (km3) and deforestation rate (%). It is a novel ecotourism indicator that can show the ecotourism status in countries.

In addition, the green governance index is calculated as a proxy for environmental policy. Principally, the Environment, Social, and Governance (ESG) data from World Bank are gathered to calculate this variable. With the improvement of the Green Governance Index, the quality of environmental policies will also increase, and vice versa. With the adverseness of the Green Governance Index, the efficiency of environmental policies will decrease.

Regarding control variables, the inflation rate as an influential factor in tourism flows is selected. The importance of this variable to promoting/declining tourism flows has been drawn to attention by some earlier studies, such as Liu et al. ( 2022 ). The inflation rate can raise the total cost of travel, causing a reduction in tourism flows, while any reduction in the inflation rate can increase the intention of tourists to travel. In addition, the KOF globalization index provided by the KOF Swiss Economic Institute is another control variable. A country with a higher degree of globalization means more readiness to accept tourists from countries with different cultures and religions.

Model specification

According to the variables mentioned above, 40 examined developing countries from 2010 to 2021, the panel co-integration model can be written as Eq. 1 :

ETOR indicates the ecotourism index, while CO2, GGI, INF, and GLOB denote Carbon dioxide emissions per capita, green governance index, inflation rate, and globalization index, respectively. i is 1,2,…,40 and shows examined developing economies, while t is time and contains 2010, 2011,..,2021.

Prior to the estimation of coefficients of Eq. 1 , the panel unit root tests are employed to find out whether the series is stationary. To this end, three tests of LLC (Levin et al., 2002 ), Breitung’s test ( 2000 ), and the PP-Fisher test (Philips and Perron, 1988 ). If all the variables are stationary at the first level of difference (I(1)), a panel co-integration test can be conducted to explore whether the model is spurious. To this end, Kao’s co-integration test ( 1999 ) and Pedroni’s residual co-integration test ( 2004 ) are conducted. If the co-integration relationship exists among variables, the panel causality test can be run to determine the causal linkages among variables. In this paper, the two steps of Engle and Granger (1987)‘s test, which is based on the error correction model (ECM) is used as Eqs. 2 – 6 :

In the above Equations, Δ is the first differences of variables, while θ and ECT represent the fixed country effect and error correction term.

The next step is the long-run panel co-integration estimations. To this end, Fully Modified OLS (FMOLS) and Dynamic OLS (DOLS) as robustness checks are conducted, which are two famous panel co-integration estimators (Rasoulinezhad, 2018 ). The FMOLS estimator has various advantages. It allows serial correlation, endogeneity, and cross-sectional heterogeneity (Erdal and Erdal, 2020 ).

Empirical results

In this section, we will implement the experimental research model. The purpose of implementing an econometric model based on panel data is to find the effects of green governance variables and carbon dioxide emissions on ecotourism. As the first step, the panel unit root tests are conducted. The results are reported in Table 1 as follows:

According to Table 1 , all three-panel unit root tests depict that all series are non-stationary at the level and become stationary after a first difference. Next, the panel co-integration tests are conducted, and their results are represented in Tables 2 and 3 :

The two-panel co-integration tests’ findings confirm the presence of co-integration linkages among variables.

The panel causality test studies the short-term and long-term causal relationship among variables. Table 4 reports the results of the panel causality check as follows:

According to Table 4 , there is a uni-directional causal relationship between the green governance indicator and the inflation rate of the ecotourism indicator. At the same time, there is a bi-directional causal relationship between carbon dioxide emissions and ecotourism indicators, confirming the existence of the feedback effect. In addition, there is only short-term causality from the green governance indicator to carbon dioxide emissions. In contrast, ecotourism and the globalization index have a uni-directional causal linkage. In the short term, improving ecotourism can cause globalization and reduce carbon emissions in developing economies. Regarding the long-term causality, it can be concluded that the ECT of ecotourism, green governance index, and globalization index are statistically significant. These three variables are major adjustment variables when the system departs from equilibrium.

In the last stage, the long-run estimations are done through FMOLS and DOLS estimators. Table 5 lists the results of the estimations by these two-panel co-integration estimators:

Based on FMOLS estimation, it can be concluded that the Green Governance index has a positive and significant coefficient in such a way that with a 1% improvement in the green governance index of developing countries, the ecotourism of these countries will increase by 0.43%. By improving the state of green governance, the quality of formulated and implemented green policies in these countries will increase, improving the conditions of ecotourism development. This finding aligns with Agrawal et al. ( 2022 ) and Debbarma and Choi ( 2022 ), who believe that green governance is essential to sustainable development. In the case of carbon dioxide emissions, the coefficient of this variable is not statistically significant. In other words, the variable of carbon dioxide emissions per capita has no significant effect on ecotourism in developing countries. The inflation rate has a significant negative effect on ecotourism. With a 1% increase in the general prices of goods and services in developing countries, ecotourism will decrease by 0.34%. This finding aligns with Rahman ( 2022 ), who showed a negative relationship between inflation and sustainable development in their research. An increase in inflation means an increase in the total cost of a tourist’s trip to the destination country, inhibiting the growth of tourist services.

Regarding the globalization variable, this variable has a significant positive effect on the ecotourism of developing countries. With a 1% increase in the globalization index of these countries, ecotourism will increase by 0.32%. Globalization means more interaction with the world’s countries, acceptance of different cultures and customs, more language learning in society, more acceptance of tourism, and development of tourist services in the country. This finding is consistent with the results of Akadiri et al. ( 2019 ), who confirmed that globalization is one of the crucial components in tourism development.

The DOLS estimator was also used to ensure the obtained findings’ validity. The results of this method are shown in Table 5 . The signs of the coefficients are consistent with the results obtained by the FMOLS method. Therefore, the validity and reliability of the obtained coefficients are confirmed.

In this section, we will briefly discuss the relationship between ecotourism and climate change and the environmental policy considering the uncertainty and the relationship between variables in developed and developing countries.

Consideration of uncertainty

Uncertainty as a primary reason for risk has become a research issue in recent decades. Uncertainty can make the future unpredictable and uncontrollable, affecting economic decision-making. Regarding tourism, the impacts of uncertainty have been drawn to attention by several earlier studies (e.g., Dutta et al., 2020 ; Das et al., 2020 ; and Balli et al., 2019 ; Balli et al., 2018 ). In general, uncertainty in the tourism industry reflects tourists’ concerns and consumption habits in the way that by increasing uncertainty, it is expected that tourists make sense of risks and postpone their tourism activities, and vice versa; in the sphere of certainties, the various risks are clear, and tourists can make rational decisions for their tourism plans and activities. In order to explore the impacts of uncertainties on eco-tourism of the examined developing economies, the geopolitical risk index (GPR) as a proxy for economic policy uncertainty index is gathered and added as a control variable to Eq. 1 . The estimations results by FMOLS are reported in Table 6 as follows.

According to Table 6 , the uncertainty (geopolitical risk) has a negative coefficient meaning that with a 1% increase in geopolitical risk, the eco-tourism industry in the examined developing countries decreases by approximately 0.69%. The signs of coefficients of other variables align with the earlier findings, represented in Table 5 . In addition, the magnitude of the impact of geopolitical risk is larger than the impacts of other variables highlighting the importance of lower geopolitical risk in these economies to reach sustainable tourism targets.

Difference in developed and developing economies

Considering the different structures and financial power of these two groups of countries, the relationship between the variables mentioned in these two groups is expected to be different. In the previous section, the results for the group of developing countries showed that the Green Governance index has a positive and significant coefficient. In the case of carbon dioxide emissions, the coefficient of this variable is not statistically significant. The inflation rate has a significant negative effect on ecotourism. Regarding the globalization variable, it can be mentioned that this variable has a significant positive effect on the ecotourism of developing countries. In order to analyze the relationship between variables in the developed countries, the top 10 countries with the highest HDI in 2021 are selected (Switzerland (0.962), Norway (0.961), Iceland (0.959), Hong Kong (0.952), Australia (0.951), Denmark (0.948), Sweden (0.947) and Ireland (0.945)). The selected variables, explained in section “Data and model specification”, are collected from 2010 to 2021. The panel unit root tests confirmed that all series are non-stationary at the level and become stationary after a first difference. In addition, the presence of co-integration linkages among variables is revealed by the panel co-integration test. The panel co-integration estimator of FMOLS is employed to study the long-term relationship among variables. The findings are reported in Table 7 as follows:

According to the estimated coefficients, the green governance indicator positively and statistically significantly impacts ecotourism in the examined developed economies. However, the magnitude of the impact of this variable is more considerable for developing countries because these countries have more imbalances in markets and regulations. Therefore, the presence of good green tourism can have a more positive effect on advancing the goal of ecotourism. Contrary to the findings of developing countries, carbon dioxide emission in developed countries has a negative and significant effect, meaning that with an increase of 1% in carbon dioxide in developed countries, the level of ecotourism becomes more unfavorable by 0.034%. Moreover, inflation and globalization variables have significant negative and positive coefficients, respectively. However, the magnitudes of these two variables’ coefficients are also higher in developing countries. Ecotourism in developing countries is more sensitive to changes in macroeconomic variables such as green governance, globalization, and inflation.

Another difference between eco-tourism in developed and developing economies may be interpreted through the term “greenwashing,” introduced by Westerveld in 1986 (Maichum et al., 2016 ). In developing countries, due to the economic structure, limited knowledge, bureaucratic process, lack of legal eco-certification, and imperfect competition, a company involved in the eco-tourism industry makes an unsubstantiated claim to deceive consumers into accepting the company’s services are in line with environmental protection policies. Hence, green governance in developing countries should have another role in regulating the eco-tourism market to lower the threat of greenwashing in eco-tourism services.

Conclusions and policy recommendations

Concluding remarks.

The findings of econometric modeling revealed the relationship between environmental policies, climate change, and ecotourism. Based on the findings of the econometric model, the following conclusions can be presented:

A uni-directional causal relationship runs from the green governance indicator and inflation rate to the ecotourism indicator, which means that any changes in green governance and inflation rate cause changes in ecotourism, which is vital for developing economies where governance and inflation rate are two crucial issues.

There is a bi-directional causal relationship between carbon dioxide emissions and ecotourism indicators, confirming the existence of the feedback hypothesis, expressing that in developing economies, any policies related to ecotourism cause changes in CO2 emissions and vice versa.

There is only short-term causality from the green governance indicator to carbon dioxide emissions, whereas there is a uni-directional causal linkage from ecotourism to the globalization index. In other words, in the short term, improving ecotourism can cause globalization and reduce carbon emissions in developing economies.

By improving green governance in developing economies, the quality of formulated and implemented green policies in these countries will increase, improving the conditions of ecotourism development.

An increase in the inflation rate raises the total cost of a tourist’s trip to developing economies, inhibiting the growth of eco-tourist services.

Globalization means more interaction with the world’s countries, acceptance of different cultures and customs, more language learning in society, more acceptance of tourism, and development of tourist services in developing countries.

Policy implications

In order to achieve the promotion of ecotourism in developing countries, the implementation of integrated and effective strategic and practical policies is of great importance. According to the concluding remarks mentioned, practical policies are presented as follows for enhancing ecotourism in developed countries. The development of ecotourism requires the improvement of various infrastructures and mechanisms, which depends on the implementation of projects related to ecotourism in developing countries. Because most countries do not have enough financial power to invest in such projects, developing the green financing market can be one of the critical practical solutions. The green financing tool can increase the investment risk and return on investment in such projects, and as a result, the participation of the private sector in these projects will increase. With information and communication technology development, virtual tourism can solve many environmental issues related to human physical presence. Virtual tourism is one of the branches of tourism services that provide people with destinations, places of interest, and tourist attractions with full quality but in virtual form. Another practical policy is granting green loans to small and medium enterprises active in ecotourism. Despite the organizational agility, these companies do not have the significant financial power to develop different sectors of ecotourism; therefore, the cooperation of the banking industry of developing countries by providing green loans (with low-interest rates) can motivate small and medium-sized companies in the field of activities related to ecotourism. Government incentives to motivate businesses active in ecotourism and government deterrent policies (green tax) from businesses active in the field of tourism to lead them to increase the share of ecotourism in their activities can be a proper operational strategy. In developing countries, the role of government and green governance is vital in advancing the goals of ecotourism. By improving the level of its green governance, the government can create efficient policies, regulations, and social tools to create motivation and desire to accept ecotourism, an essential and undeniable issue in developing societies. Creating a guarantee fund for ecotourism companies in developing countries is another practical policy to support these companies financially. Guarantee funds can be established with the participation of the people of ecotourism destinations in order to strengthen the financial strength of ecotourism companies in these destinations.

Limitations and recommendations to further research

This research had a practical and innovative contribution to the literature on ecotourism in developing countries. The findings obtained from the econometric model analysis provided appropriate practical and strategic policies to the policymakers of countries interested in the development of ecotourism. However, access to data related to the ecotourism index and sustainable development of developing countries due to the lack of community in a specific database is considered one of the critical limitations of this research. This limitation caused many developing countries to be excluded from the research sample, which may have created a deviation in the research. Adding more countries to the test sample in future research is suggested to obtain complete and accurate results. Also, due to the outbreak of the Corona pandemic at the end of 2019 and the Russia-Ukraine war since the beginning of 2022, it is suggested that these two variables be included in the econometric model as an illusion in order to analyze their effects on the ecotourism of the countries of the world. Using other econometric methods, such as artificial neural networks, is suggested to model ecotourism in different countries. Complex modeling by taking into account trends and trends to predict the relationship between variables in the future will be an essential step in formulating effective programs in ecotourism.

Data availability

The datasets generated during and/or analyzed during the current study are available from the corresponding author on reasonable request.

Abedin Z, Handayani W, Zaky E, Faturrahman A (2022) Perceived risk and attitude’s mediating role between tourism knowledge and visit intention during the COVID-19 pandemic: implementation for coastal-ecotourism management. Heliyon 8(10):e10724. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.heliyon.2022.e10724

Article Google Scholar

Agrawal A, Brandhorst S, Jain M, Liao C, Pradhan N, Solomon D (2022) From environmental governance to governance for sustainability. One Earth 5(6):615–621

Article ADS Google Scholar

Ahmad N, Youjin L, Hdia M (2022) The role of innovation and tourism in sustainability: why is environment-friendly tourism necessary for entrepreneurship? J Clean Prod 379(Part 2):134799. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jclepro.2022.134799

Akadiri S, Alola A, Akadiri A (2019) The role of globalization, real income, tourism in environmental sustainability target. Evidence from Turkey. Sci Total Environ 687:423–432

Article ADS CAS PubMed Google Scholar

Bai X, Wang K, Tran T, Sadiq M, Trung L, Khudoykulov K (2022) Measuring China’s green economic recovery and energy environment sustainability: econometric analysis of sustainable development goals. Econ Anal Policy 75:768–779

Balli F, Shahzad SJH, Uddin GS (2018) A tale of two shocks: what do we learn from the impacts of economic policy uncertainties on tourism? Tour Manag68:470–475

Balli F, Uddin GS, Shahzad SJH (2019) Geopolitical risk and tourism demand in emerging economies. Tour Econ 25(6):997–1005

Baloch Q, Shah S, Iqbal N, Sheeraz M, Asadullah M, Mahar S, Khan A (2022) Impact of tourism development upon environmental sustainability: a suggested framework for sustainable ecotourism. Environ Sci Pollut Res https://doi.org/10.1007/s11356-022-22496-w

Breitung J (2000) The local power of some unit root tests for panel data. In: Baltagi B (ed.). Nonstationary panels, panel cointegration, and dynamic panels, advances in econometrics. vol. 15. JAI Press, Amsterdam. pp. 161–178

Brida J, Gomez D, Segarra V (2020) On the empirical relationship between tourism and economic growth. Tour Manag 81:104131. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.tourman.2020.104131

Casado-Aranda L, Fernandez J, Bastidas-Manzano A (2021) Tourism research after the COVID-19 outbreak: insights for more sustainable, local and smart cities. Sustain Cities Soc 73:103126. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.scs.2021.103126

Article PubMed PubMed Central Google Scholar

Centobelli P, Cerchione R, Esposito E (2022) Environmental sustainability in the service industry of transportation and logistics service providers: systematic literature review and research directions. Transp Res Part D Trans Environ 53:454–470

Chao Q, Feng A (2018) Scientific basis of climate change and its response. Glob Energy Interconnect 1(4):420–427

Google Scholar

Choi Y, Oh C, Chon J (2022) Applying the resilience principles for sustainable ecotourism development: a case study of the Nakdong Estuary, South Korea. Tour Manag 83:104237. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.tourman.2020.104237

Das D, Dutta A, Bhadra A, Uddin GS (2020) Role of presidential uncertainties on the hotel industry. Ann Tour Res 81:102762

Debbarma J, Choi Y (2022) A taxonomy of green governance: a qualitative and quantitative analysis towards sustainable development. Sustain Cities Soc 79:103693. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.scs.2022.103693

Dutta A, Mishra T, Uddin GS, Yang Y (2020) Brexit uncertainty and volatility persistence in tourism demand. Curr Issue Tour 24(16):2225–2232

Erdal H, Erdal G (2020) Panel FMOLS model analysis of the effects of livestock support policies on sustainable animal presence in Turkey. Sustainability 12:3444. https://doi.org/10.3390/su12083444

Espoir D, Mudiangombe B, Bannor F, Sunge R, Tshitaka J (2022) CO2 emissions and economic growth: Assessing the heterogeneous effects across climate regimes in Africa. Sci Total Environ 804:150089. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.scitotenv.2021.150089

Hasana U, Swain S, George B (2022) A bibliometric analysis of ecotourism: a safeguard strategy in protected areas. Region Sustain 3(1):27–40

Heshmati M, Gheitury M, Shadfar S (2022) Factors affecting possibility of ecotourism development and sustaining natural resources using SWOT approach in west Iran. Int J Geoheritage Parks 10(2):173–183

Holzner M (2011) Tourism and economic development: the beach disease. Tour Manag32(4):922–933

Hosseini S, Paydar M, Keshteli M (2021) Recovery solutions for ecotourism centers during the Covid-19 pandemic: utilizing Fuzzy DEMATEL and Fuzzy VIKOR methods. Exp Syst Appl 185:115594. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.eswa.2021.115594

Hosseini S, Paydar M, Triki C (2021) Implementing sustainable ecotourism in Lafour region, Iran: applying a clustering method based on SWOT analysis. J Clean Prod 329:129716. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jclepro.2021.129716

Jeyacheya J, Hampton M (2022) Pathway choice and post-Covid tourism: Inclusive growth or business as usual? World Dev Sustain 1:100024. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.wds.2022.100024

Jin C, Takao M, Yobuta M(2022) Impact of Japan’s local community power on green tourism. Asia Pacific J Region Sci 6:571–591

Kao C (1999) Spurious regression and residual-based tests for cointegration in panel data. J Economet 90(1):1–44

Article MathSciNet MATH Google Scholar

Kunjuraman V, Hussin R, Aziz R (2022) Community-based ecotourism as a social transformation tool for rural community: a victory or a quagmire. J Outdoor Recreat Tour 39:100524. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jort.2022.100524

Lee C, Wang C, Ho S (2022) The dimension of green economy: Culture viewpoint. Econ Anal Policy 74:122–138

Levin A, Lin CF, Chu CS (2002) Unit root tests in panel data: asymptotic and finite-sample properties. J Economet 108(1):1–24

Li J, Ridderstaat J, Yost E (2022) Tourism development and quality of life interdependence with evolving age-cohort-based population. Tour Manag 93:104621. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.tourman.2022.104621

Liu A, Kim Y, Song H (2022) Toward an accurate assessment of tourism economic impact: a systematic literature review. Ann Tour Res Empirical Insight 3(2):100054. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.annale.2022.100054

Lu C, Huang J, Chen C, Shu M, Hsu C, Bapu T (2021) An energy-efficient smart city for sustainable green tourism industry. Sustain Energy Technol Assess 47:101494. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.seta.2021.101494

Maichum K, Parichatnon S, Peng KC (2016) Application of the extended theory of planned behavior model to investigate purchase intention of green products among Thai consumers. Sustainability 8:1077

Pedroni P (2004) Panel cointegration: asymptotic and finite sample properties of pooled time series tests with an application to the PPP hypothesis. Economet Theory 20(3):597–625

Phillips PCB, Perron P (1988) Testing for a unit root in time series regressions. Biometrika. 75(2):335–346

Rahman M (2022) The effect of taxation on sustainable development goals: evidence from emerging countries. Heliyon 8(9):e10512. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.heliyon.2022.e10512

Rasoulinezhad E (2018) A new evidence from the effects of Russia’s WTO accession on its foreign trade. Eur Econ Rev 8(1):73–92

Rasoulinezhad E, Taghizadeh-Hesary F (2022) Role of green finance in improving energy efficiency and renewable energy development. Energy Efficiency 15(2):14. https://doi.org/10.1007/s12053-022-10021-4

Roelfsema M, Soest H, Elzen M, Coninck HH, Kuramochi T, Harmsen M, Dagnomilis I, Hohne N, Vuuren D (2022) Developing scenarios in the context of the Paris Agreement and application in the integrated assessment model IMAGE: a framework for bridging the policy-modelling divide. Environ Sci Policy 135:104–116

Article CAS Google Scholar

Ruhanan L (2019) The prominence of eco in ecotourism experiences: an analysis of post-purchase online reviews. J Hosp Tour Manag 39:110–116

Sokhanvar A, Ciftcioglu S, Javid E (2018) Another look at tourism-economic development nexus. Tour Manag Perspect 26:97–106

Soliku O, Kyiire B, Mahama A, Kubio C (2021) Tourism amid COVID-19 pandemic: impacts and implications for building resilience in the eco-tourism sector in Ghana’s Savannah region. Heliyon 7(9):e07892. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.heliyon.2021.e07892

Article CAS PubMed PubMed Central Google Scholar

Sorensen F, Grindsted T (2021) Sustainability approaches and nature tourism development. Ann Tour Res 91:103307. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.annals.2021.103307

Sun Y, Ding W, Yang G (2022) Green innovation efficiency of China’s tourism industry from the perspective of shared inputs: Dynamic evolution and combination improvement paths. Ecol Indica 138:108824. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ecolind.2022.108824

Tajer E, Demir S (2022) Ecotourism strategy of UNESCO city in Iran: applying a new quantitative method integrated with BWM. J Clean Prod 376:134284. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jclepro.2022.134284

Takashima N (2018) International environmental agreements between asymmetric countries: a repeated game analysis. Jpn World Econ 48:38–44

Thompson B (2022) Ecotourism anywhere? The lure of ecotourism and the need to scrutinize the potential competitiveness of ecotourism developments. Tour Manag 92:104568. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.tourman.2022.104568

Werikhe A (2022) Towards a green and sustainable recovery from COVID-19. Curr Res Environ Sustain 4:100124. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.crsust.2022.100124

Woodward A (2019) Climate change: disruption, risk and opportunity. Glob Trans 1:44–49

Xu L, Ao C, Liu B, Cai Z (2022) Cotourism and sustainable development: a scientometric review of global research trends. Environ Dev Sustain https://doi.org/10.1007/s10668-022-02190-0

Yusef N, Rahman F, Jamil M, Iranmanesh M (2014) Measuring the quality of ecotourism services: case study–based model validation. Sage Open, https://doi.org/10.1177/2158244014538270

Zekan B, Weismayer C, Gunter U, Schuh B, Sedlacek S (2022) Regional sustainability and tourism carrying capacities. J Clean Prod 339:130624. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jclepro.2022.130624

Zheng H, Dai H, Lai H, Wang W (2017) U.S. withdrawal from the Paris agreement: reasons, impacts, and China’s response. Adv Clim Change Rese 8(4):220–225

Download references

Author information

Authors and affiliations.

School of Hospitality Administration, Zhejiang Yuexiu University, Zhejiang, China

Yunfeng Shang

School of Economics, Tianjin University of Commerce, Tianjin, China

Chunyu Bi, Xinyu Wei & Dayang Jiang

School of Global Studies, Tokai University, Tokyo, Japan

Farhad Taghizadeh-Hesary

TOKAI Research Institute for Environment and Sustainability (TRIES), Tokai University, Tokyo, Japan

Faculty of World Studies, University of Tehran, Tehran, Iran

Ehsan Rasoulinezhad

You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Corresponding authors

Correspondence to Yunfeng Shang , Dayang Jiang or Ehsan Rasoulinezhad .

Ethics declarations

Competing interests.

The authors declare no competing interests.

Ethical approval

This article does not contain any studies with human participants performed by any of the authors.

Informed consent

Additional information.

Publisher’s note Springer Nature remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations.

Rights and permissions

Open Access This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article’s Creative Commons license, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article’s Creative Commons license and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this license, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ .

Reprints and permissions

About this article

Cite this article.

Shang, Y., Bi, C., Wei, X. et al. Eco-tourism, climate change, and environmental policies: empirical evidence from developing economies. Humanit Soc Sci Commun 10 , 275 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1057/s41599-023-01777-w

Download citation

Received : 11 November 2022

Accepted : 18 May 2023

Published : 31 May 2023

DOI : https://doi.org/10.1057/s41599-023-01777-w

Share this article

Anyone you share the following link with will be able to read this content:

Sorry, a shareable link is not currently available for this article.

Provided by the Springer Nature SharedIt content-sharing initiative

This article is cited by

Spatial effects of green finance development in chinese provinces under the context of high-quality energy development.

Fangbin Qian

Economic Change and Restructuring (2024)

Quick links

Explore articles by subject
Guide to authors
Editorial policies

Sustainable tourism

Related sdgs, promote sustained, inclusive and sustainable ....

Description

Publications.

Tourism is one of the world's fastest growing industries and an important source of foreign exchange and employment, while being closely linked to the social, economic, and environmental well-being of many countries, especially developing countries. Maritime or ocean-related tourism, as well as coastal tourism, are for example vital sectors of the economy in small island developing States (SIDS) and coastal least developed countries (LDCs) (see also: The Potential of the Blue Economy report as well as the Community of Ocean Action on sustainable blue economy).

The World Tourism Organization defines sustainable tourism as “tourism that takes full account of its current and future economic, social and environmental impacts, addressing the needs of visitors, the industry, the environment and host communities".

Based on General assembly resolution 70/193, 2017 was declared as the International Year of Sustainable Tourism for Development.

In the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development SDG target 8.9, aims to “by 2030, devise and implement policies to promote sustainable tourism that creates jobs and promotes local culture and products”. The importance of sustainable tourism is also highlighted in SDG target 12.b. which aims to “develop and implement tools to monitor sustainable development impacts for sustainable tourism that creates jobs and promotes local culture and products”.

Tourism is also identified as one of the tools to “by 2030, increase the economic benefits to Small Island developing States and least developed countries” as comprised in SDG target 14.7.

In the Rio+20 outcome document The Future We want, sustainable tourism is defined by paragraph 130 as a significant contributor “to the three dimensions of sustainable development” thanks to its close linkages to other sectors and its ability to create decent jobs and generate trade opportunities. Therefore, Member States recognize “the need to support sustainable tourism activities and relevant capacity-building that promote environmental awareness, conserve and protect the environment, respect wildlife, flora, biodiversity, ecosystems and cultural diversity, and improve the welfare and livelihoods of local communities by supporting their local economies and the human and natural environment as a whole. ” In paragraph 130, Member States also “call for enhanced support for sustainable tourism activities and relevant capacity-building in developing countries in order to contribute to the achievement of sustainable development”.

In paragraph 131, Member States “encourage the promotion of investment in sustainable tourism, including eco-tourism and cultural tourism, which may include creating small- and medium-sized enterprises and facilitating access to finance, including through microcredit initiatives for the poor, indigenous peoples and local communities in areas with high eco-tourism potential”. In this regard, Member States also “underline the importance of establishing, where necessary, appropriate guidelines and regulations in accordance with national priorities and legislation for promoting and supporting sustainable tourism”.

In 2002, the World Summit on Sustainable Development in Johannesburg called for the promotion of sustainable tourism development, including non-consumptive and eco-tourism, in Chapter IV, paragraph 43 of the Johannesburg Plan of Implementation.

At the Johannesburg Summit, the launch of the “Sustainable Tourism – Eliminating Poverty (ST-EP) initiative was announced. The initiative was inaugurated by the World Tourism Organization, in collaboration with UNCTAD, in order to develop sustainable tourism as a force for poverty alleviation.

The UN Commission on Sustainable Development (CSD) last reviewed the issue of sustainable tourism in 2001, when it was acting as the Preparatory Committee for the Johannesburg Summit.

The importance of sustainable tourism was also mentioned in Agenda 21.

For more information and documents on this topic, please visit this link

UNWTO Annual Report 2015

2015 was a landmark year for the global community. In September, the 70th Session of the United Nations General Assembly adopted the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), a universal agenda for planet and people. Among the 17 SDGs and 169 associated targets, tourism is explicitly featured in Goa...

UNWTO Annual Report 2016

In December 2015, the United Nations General Assembly declared 2017 as the International Year of Sustainable Tourism for Development. This is a unique opportunity to devote a year to activities that promote the transformational power of tourism to help us reach a better future. This important cele...

Emerging Issues for Small Island Developing States

The 2012 UNEP Foresight Process on Emerging Global Environmental Issues primarily identified emerging environmental issues and possible solutions on a global scale and perspective. In 2013, UNEP carried out a similar exercise to identify priority emerging environmental issues that are of concern to ...

Transforming our World: The 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development

This Agenda is a plan of action for people, planet and prosperity. It also seeks to strengthen universal peace in larger freedom, We recognize that eradicating poverty in all its forms and dimensions, including extreme poverty, is the greatest global challenge and an indispensable requirement for su...

Status and Trends of Caribbean Coral Reefs: 1970-2012

Previous Caribbean assessments lumped data together into a single database regardless of geographic location, reef environment, depth, oceanographic conditions, etc. Data from shallow lagoons and back reef environments were combined with data from deep fore-reef environments and atolls. Geographic c...

15 Years of the UNWTO World Tourism Network on Child Protection: A Compilation of Good Practices

Although it is widely recognized that tourism is not the cause of child exploitation, it can aggravate the problem when parts of its infrastructure, such as transport networks and accommodation facilities, are exploited by child abusers for nefarious ends. Additionally, many other factors that contr...

Towards Measuring the Economic Value of Wildlife Watching Tourism in Africa

Set against the backdrop of the ongoing poaching crisis driven by a dramatic increase in the illicit trade in wildlife products, this briefing paper intends to support the ongoing efforts of African governments and the broader international community in the fight against poaching. Specifically, this...

Natural Resources Forum: Special Issue Tourism

The journal considers papers on all topics relevant to sustainable development. In addition, it dedicates series, issues and special sections to specific themes that are relevant to the current discussions of the United Nations Commission on Sustainable Development (CSD)....

Thailand: Supporting Sustainable Development in Thailand: A Geographic Clusters Approach

Market forces and government policies, including the Tenth National Development Plan (2007-2012), are moving Thailand toward a more geographically specialized economy. There is a growing consensus that Thailand’s comparative and competitive advantages lie in amenity services that have high reliance...

Natural Resources Forum, a United Nations Sustainable Development Journal (NRF)

  Natural Resources Forum, a United Nations Sustainable Development Journal, seeks to address gaps in current knowledge and stimulate relevant policy discussions, leading to the implementation of the sustainable development agenda and the achievement of the Sustainable...

Road Map on Building a Green Economy for Sustainable Development in Carriacou and Petite Martinique, Grenada

This publication is the product of an international study led by the Division for Sustainable Development (DSD) of the United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs (UNDESA) in cooperation with the Ministry of Carriacou and Petite Martinique Affairs and the Ministry of Environment, Foreig...

UN Ocean Conference 2025

Our Ocean, Our Future, Our Responsibility “The ocean is fundamental to life on our planet and to our future. The ocean is an important source of the planet’s biodiversity and plays a vital role in the climate system and water cycle. The ocean provides a range of ecosystem services, supplies us with

UN Ocean Conference 2022

The UN Ocean Conference 2022, co-hosted by the Governments of Kenya and Portugal, came at a critical time as the world was strengthening its efforts to mobilize, create and drive solutions to realize the 17 Sustainable Development Goals by 2030.

58th Session of the Commission for Social Development – CSocD58

22nd general assembly of the united nations world tourism organization, world tourism day 2017 official celebration.

This year’s World Tourism Day, held on 27 September, will be focused on Sustainable Tourism – a Tool for Development. Celebrated in line with the 2017 International Year of Sustainable Tourism for Development, the Day will be dedicated to exploring the contribution of tourism to the Sustainable Deve

World Tourism Day 2016 Official Celebration

Accessible Tourism for all is about the creation of environments that can cater for the needs of all of us, whether we are traveling or staying at home. May that be due to a disability, even temporary, families with small children, or the ageing population, at some point in our lives, sooner or late

4th Global Summit on City Tourism

The World Tourism Organisation (UNWTO) and the Regional Council for Tourism of Marrakesh with support of the Government of Morroco are organizing the 4th Global Summit on City Tourism in Marrakesh, Morroco (9-10 December 2015). International experts in city tourism, representatives of city DMOs, of

2nd Euro-Asian Mountain Resorts Conference

The World Tourism Organisation (UNWTO) and Ulsan Metropolitan City with support of the Government of the Republic of Korea are organizing the 2nd Euro-Asian Mountain Resorts Conference, in Ulsan, Republic of Korea (14 - 16 October 2015). Under the title “Paving the Way for a Bright Future for Mounta

21st General Assembly of the United Nations World Tourism Organization

Unwto regional conference enhancing brand africa - fostering tourism development.

Tourism is one of the Africa’s most promising sectors in terms of development, and represents a major opportunity to foster inclusive development, increase the region’s participation in the global economy and generate revenues for investment in other activities, including environmental preservation.

January 2017 International Year of Tourism In the context of the universal 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development and the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), the International Year aims to support a change in policies, business practices and consumer behavior towards a more sustainable tourism sector that can contribute to the SDGs.
January 2015 Targets 8.9, 12 b,14.7 The 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development commits Member States, through Sustainable Development Goal Target 8.9 to “devise and implement policies to promote sustainable tourism that creates jobs and promotes local culture and products”. The importance of sustainable tourism, as a driver for jobs creation and the promotion of local culture and products, is also highlighted in Sustainable Development Goal target 12.b. Tourism is also identified as one of the tools to “increase [by 2030] the economic benefits to Small Island developing States and least developed countries”, through Sustainable Development Goals Target 14.7.
January 2012 Future We Want (Para 130-131) Sustainable tourism is defined as a significant contributor “to the three dimensions of sustainable development” thanks to its close linkages to other sectors and its ability to create decent jobs and generate trade opportunities. Therefore, Member States recognize “the need to support sustainable tourism activities and relevant capacity-building that promote environmental awareness, conserve and protect the environment, respect wildlife, flora, biodiversity, ecosystems and cultural diversity, and improve the welfare and livelihoods of local communities” as well as to “encourage the promotion of investment in sustainable tourism, including eco-tourism and cultural tourism, which may include creating small and medium sized enterprises and facilitating access to finance, including through microcredit initiatives for the poor, indigenous peoples and local communities in areas with high eco-tourism potential”.
January 2009 Roadmap for Recovery UNWTO announced in March 2009 the elaboration of a Roadmap for Recovery to be finalized by UNWTO’s General Assembly, based on seven action points. The Roadmap includes a set of 15 recommendations based on three interlocking action areas: resilience, stimulus, green economy aimed at supporting the tourism sector and the global economy.
January 2008 Global Sustainable Tourism Criteria The Global Sustainable Tourism Criteria represent the minimum requirements any tourism business should observe in order to ensure preservation and respect of the natural and cultural resources and make sure at the same time that tourism potential as tool for poverty alleviation is enforced. The Criteria are 41 and distributed into four different categories: 1) sustainability management, 2) social and economic 3) cultural 4) environmental.
January 2003 1st Int. Conf. on Climate Change and Tourism The conference was organized in order to gather tourism authorities, organizations, businesses and scientists to discuss on the impact that climate change can have on the tourist sector. The event took place from 9 till 11 April 2003 in Djerba, Tunisia.
January 2003 WTO becomes a UN specialized body By Resolution 453 (XV), the Assembly agreed on the transformation of the WTO into a United Nations specialized body. Such transformation was later ratified by the United Nations General Assembly with the adoption of Resolution A/RES/58/232.
January 2002 World Ecotourism Summit Held in May 2002, in Quebec City, Canada, the Summit represented the most important event in the framework of the International Year of Ecosystem. The Summit identified as main themes: ecotourism policy and planning, regulation of ecotourism, product development, marketing and promotion of ecotourism and monitoring costs and benefits of ecotourism.
January 1985 Tourism Bill of Rights and Tourist Code At the World Tourism Organization Sixth Assembly held in Sofia in 1985, the Tourism Bill of Rights and Tourist Code were adopted, setting out the rights and duties of tourists and host populations and formulating policies and action for implementation by states and the tourist industry.
January 1982 Acapulco Document Adopted in 1982, the Acapulco Document acknowledges the new dimension and role of tourism as a positive instrument towards the improvement of the quality of life for all peoples, as well as a significant force for peace and international understanding. The Acapulco Document also urges Member States to elaborate their policies, plans and programmes on tourism, in accordance with their national priorities and within the framework of the programme of work of the World Tourism Organization.

UN Tourism | Bringing the world closer

Share this content.

Share this article on facebook
Share this article on twitter
Share this article on linkedin

EU Guidebook on Sustainable Tourism for Development

In recognition of the considerable opportunities and issues involved in the development of tourism, in 2012 the European Commission's Directorate-General for Development and Cooperation – EuropeAid established the project “Enhancing capacities for sustainable tourism for development in developing countries”. The project was undertaken in collaboration with the World Tourism Organization (UNWTO) which was commissioned to prepare a Guidebook on Sustainable Tourism, as an engine for development, trade in services, job creation and poverty reduction.

The Guidebook is intended to enhance the understanding of tourism in all its dimensions, how it relates to the EU Agenda for Change so as to enable EU services in Brussels and the EU Delegations in 180 countries as well as other development institutions to include sustainable tourism development in their programme cycles.

UNWTO endeavours to maximize tourism’s contribution to, inter alia, development and international understanding, while minimizing its negative impacts, paying particular attention to the growth potential of developing countries. Likewise, the European Union is well placed to support developing countries in identifying and implementing interventions in sustainable tourism.

The approach has been based on the experience of UNWTO and its work with a wide range of partner agencies and governments. In particular, the results of the study have been field tested in six countries during and following the preparation of the document, namely Kenya, India, Vietnam, Senegal, Botswana and Timor-Leste . The guidebook was publicly launched with the EU on the 27th of June 2013 in Brussels.

Background- Sustainable Tourism for Development

Over the last decades, tourism has experienced continued growth and increased diversification, becoming one of the fastest growing economic sectors in the world. The business volume of tourism today equals or even surpasses that of oil exports, food products or automobiles, offering millions of direct entry points into the workforce, particularly for youth and women, and a diversity of investment opportunities for young entrepreneurial talents. Tourism has become one of the major sectors in international trade, at the same time representing one of the main income sources for many developing countries. It is their only service sector with recorded surpluses in trade compared to the rest of the world.

However, tourism can also be a source of environmental damage and pollution, a threat to the socio-cultural structure, a heavy user of scarce resources and a potential cause of negative externalities in society. What must be done?

Tourism in the Global Development Agenda: The future we want Rio+20 outcome document

" Sustainable tourism is highlighted in the final outcome document of Rio+20 as a thematic area and a cross-sectorial issue within the framework for action and follow-up.

130. We emphasize that well-designed and managed tourism can make a significant contribution to the three dimensions of sustainable development, has close linkages to other sectors, and can create decent jobs and generate trade opportunities (…)

131. We encourage the promotion of investment in sustainable tourism, including eco-tourism and cultural tourism, which may include creating small and medium sized enterprises and facilitating access to finance, including through microcredit initiatives for the poor, indigenous peoples and local communities in areas with high eco-tourism potential (…)"

Rio+20: The Future We Want
Green Economy Report leaflet

In recent years, sustainability has emerged as a critical concern that must be addressed in any viable tourism development strategy. Expressed simply, sustainable tourism can be defined as “Tourism that takes full account of its current and future economic, social and environmental impacts, addressing the needs of visitors, the industry, the environment, and host communities”. Tourism is one of the ten economic sectors identified in the UNEP Green Economy Report, whose greening could increase prosperity, create employment and reduce poverty. In addition, tourists are increasingly demanding the greening of tourism. Tourism development should hence have a sustainable approach , to be able to promote growth in the long-term while maintaining a balanced use of resources. This should be supported at local, national, regional and international levels.

Developing Countries surpassing advanced economies’ international tourist arrivals in 2015

Although developed countries remain both the major tourism destinations and source of international tourism, developing countries are reducing the gap. In recent decades there has been a substantial diversification in international tourism destinations, and many developing countries have registered phenomenal growth in tourist arrivals and receipts. Tourism also particularly thrives on assets such as natural environment, warm climate, rich cultural heritage and plentiful human resources, where developing countries have a comparative advantage.

Tourism is the first or second source of export earnings in 20 of the 48 LDCs
In some developing countries, notably small island states, tourism can account for over 25% of GDP.
From 2015, emerging economies will, for the first time receive more international tourist arrivals than advanced economies
By 2030, 58% of international arrivals will be to emerging economy destinations of Asia, Latin America, Central and Eastern Europe, the Middle East and Africa

Inbound tourism, advanced and emerging economies

However, tourism can also be a source of environmental damage and pollution , a heavy consumer of scarce resources and a cause of negative impacts in society. For these reasons, it is imperative that it is well planned and managed , embracing the principles of sustainable tourism which is defined as “tourism that takes full account of its current and future economic, social and environmental impacts, addressing the needs of visitors, the industry the environment and host communities” .

The Purpose of the Guidebook- Sustainable Tourism for Development

The document is aimed at two main audiences:

The EU and other development assistance agencies – to help them understand and identify opportunities to assist the tourism sector in delivering sustainable development.
Governments and other stakeholders within developing countries – to help them identify where they may need to strengthen their approach to sustainable tourism, and if necessary to seek assistance, within the context of international priorities and policies for sustainable development.

In particular the document provides a basis for discussion between the above two groups in agreeing on priorities and actions for supporting sustainable tourism.

The study is seen as informing the existing cooperation frameworks and common assessment and coordination processes in Official Development Assistance and Aid for Trade . This applies particularly in the field of trade, in which tourism plays an important part, including the work of the Enhanced Integrated Framework in promoting Diagnostic Trade Integration Studies and in the delivery of Aid for Trade.

The study contributes to the positioning of tourism within the overarching framework for action on green growth, poverty eradication and sustainable development post-2015 , stemming from Rio+20 and addressed by the European Commission in Communication (2013) 92 A Decent Life for All: Ending poverty and giving the world a sustainable futur e

“Sustainable Tourism for development in developing countries”: A document in three interlinking parts

The Guidebook takes a comprehensive approach to tourism, covering a wide range of topics relating to its planning, development, management and impact. By working through the whole document, users are able to identify priorities for intervention across a spectrum of issues.

The Guidebook’s aim is to mainstream tourism by:

Enhancing understanding and commitment to sustainable tourism.
Providing guidance to assess the tourism sector’s importance, identifying opportunities for sustainable tourism development, planning actions, and enhancing sustainability of projects.
Delivering a “Sustainable Tourism for Development Study” which will enable the EU and other development institutions to include sustainable tourism development in their programme cycles.

The guidebook is divided in the three parts described below:

GUIDANCE NOTE: Relates the UE framework for development, e.g. the EU Agenda for Change and Tourism pillars (methodology) and relates to EU priorities. It aims at providing guidance to EU services on the approaches required to ensure the effective implementation of priorities for sustainable tourism in developing countries.
SITUATION ANALYSIS : Describes the macro-economic dimensions of tourism; its contrubution to improve the situation of a country and its relation with other sectors; policies in place to develop the sector and its contribution to sustainable development and reviews the existing policies and programmes auming at developing sustainable tourism in developing countries.
METHODOLOGY: Designes to ptovide EU delagrions with a sustematics approach to understand the impact and value of the tourism sector in the country and the way it is managed and operated; and to understand which actions are appropriate to improve the situation through tailored interventions.

“The Methodology”: How to assess priorities for Sustainable Tourism in Developing Countries?

The Methodology follows a systematic structure which, through a series of questions * under each issue, enables the situation to be assessed, weaknesses and gaps identified and possible actions considered, while also pointing to existing services that are available. It focuses on five key pillars of sustainable tourism in developing countries:

Assess your needs!

Questionnaire Pillar 1- Tourism policy and governance
Questionnaire Pillar 2- Trade Investment, Data and Competitiveness
Questionnaire Pillar 3- Employment, Decent Work and Capacity Building
Questionnaire Pillar 4- Poverty Reduction and Social Inclusion
Questionnaire Pillar 5- Sustainability of natural and cultural environment

National Geographic content straight to your inbox—sign up for our popular newsletters here

INTELLIGENT TRAVEL

Is Tourism Destroying the World?

Travel is transforming the world, and not always for the better. Though it’s an uncomfortable reality (who doesn’t like to travel?), it’s something award-winning journalist Elizabeth Becker devoted five years of her life to investigating. The result is Overbooked: The Exploding Business of Travel and Tourism .

I caught up with the author to get the inside scoop on the book, what prompted her to write it, and what she learned along the way, and this is what she had to say.

Leslie Trew Magraw: You made a name for yourself as a war correspondent covering Cambodia for The Washington Post . What prompted you to write this book?

Elizabeth Becker: My profession has been to understand world events. I reported from Asia and Europe [for the Post ] and later was the senior foreign editor at NPR. At The New York Times , I became the international economics correspondent in 2002, and that is when I began noticing the explosion of tourism and how much countries rich and poor were coming to rely on it.

But tourism isn’t treated as a serious business or economic force. Travel sections are all about the best vacations. So I used a fellowship at Harvard to begin my research and then wrote this book to point out what seemed so obvious: Tourism is among the biggest global industries and, as such, has tremendous impacts—environmental, cultural, economic—that have to be acknowledged and addressed.

Amazon named "Overbooked" one of the ten best books of the month. (Cover courtesy Simon & Schuster)

Which country can you point to as a model for sustainable tourism?

One of the more ambitious is France , which is aiming for sustainability in the whole country. The key, I think, is that the French never fully bought in to the modern obsession with tourist overdevelopment. They have been nurturing their own culture and landscape, cities, and villages for decades. Since they have tied their economy to tourism, they have applied a precise and country-wide approach that mostly works.

All relevant ministries are involved, including culture, commerce, agriculture, sports, and transportation. Planning is bottom up, beginning with locals at destinations who decide what they want to promote and how they want to improve. The French obsession with protecting their culture—some would call it arrogance—has worked in their favor. The planning and bureaucracy required to make this work would try the patience of many governments.

Now, even though the country is smaller than the state of Texas, France is the most popular destination in the world. Tourism officials told me one of their biggest worries is becoming victims of their success: too many foreigners buying second homes or retirement homes in French villages and Parisian neighborhoods, which could tip the balance and undermine that sustainable and widely admired French way of life.

Many destinations are making impressive changes. Philanthropists are helping African game parks find their footing. I was lucky to see how Paul Allen , for instance, is helping in Zambia .

Which country is doing it all wrong?

Cambodia has made some bad choices in tourism. It is blessed with the magnificent temples of Angkor , glorious beaches in the south, cities with charming overlay of the French colonial heritage, and a rural landscape of sugar palms, rice paddies, and houses on stilts.

The author. (Photograph courtesy Simon & Schuster)

Yet, rather than protect these gems, the government has allowed rapacious tourism to threaten the very attractions that bring tourists. Tourism is seen as a cash cow.

Some of the capital’s most stunning historic buildings are being razed to build look-alike modern hotels. In Angkor, a thicket of new hotels has outpaced infrastructure and is draining the water table so badly the temples are sinking—and profits from tourism do not reach the common people, who are now among the poorest in the country.

In addition, Cambodia has become synonymous with sex tourism that exploits young girls and boys. The latest wrinkle is to encourage tourists on the “genocide trail” to see the killing fields and execution centers from the Khmer Rouge era.

With more than a billion people traveling each year, how can we see the world without destroying it?

That is the essential question. Countries are figuring out how to protect their destinations in quiet, non-offensive ways. They control the number of hotel beds, the number of flights to and from a country, the number of tour buses allowed. Some have “sacrifice zones,” where tourists are allowed to flood one section of beachfront, for example, while the rest is protected as a wildlife preserve or [reserved] for locals. Most countries are heavily promoting off-season travel as the most obvious way to control crowds.

Countries are also putting more muscle into regulations [governing] pollution. The toughest problem is breaking the habit of politicians being too close to the industry to the detriment of their country. Money talks in tourism as in any other big business. Luxury chains wanting a store near a major tourist attraction will pay high rents to push out locals. Officials fail to enforce rules against phony “authentic” souvenirs.

One of the worst offenders are the supersize cruise ships that swarm localities, straining local services and sites and giving back little in return.

What do you think will be the biggest challenge for 21st-century travelers?

Avoiding “drive-by tourism.” This is a phrase coined by Paul Bennett of Context Travel , referring to the growing habit of people visiting a destination for a few hours—maybe a few days—and seeing only a blur of sights with little appreciation for the country, culture, or people.

One of the eureka moments in my five years of research was reading old guidebooks in the Library of Congress.

The Baedeker Guides were written in consultation with historians and archaeologists who presumed the tourists wanted to immerse themselves in a country. They included a short dictionary of the language of the country and, only at the very end, short lists of hotels and restaurants.

Today it is the reverse: Guides have short paragraphs about history, culture, and politics and long lists of where to eat and sleep.

Nat Geo Expeditions

My advice is to first be a tourist where you live. Explore the museums, the farms, the churches, the night life, the historic monuments—and then read up on local politics and history.

If you’re interested in volunteering overseas, first volunteer at home. Then when you’re planning your next trip abroad, use that experience as a template and study up on the destination you’re about to visit.

Don’t forget to try to learn something of the local language. It is a gift.

Q: Are there any tourism trends that give you hope for the future of travel?

A: People are again recognizing that travel is a privilege. Responsible tourism in its various forms—volunteer tourism, adventure tourism, slow tourism (where people take their time), agro-tourism (where visitors live and work on a farm), ecotourism , geotourism—all speak to tourists’ desire to respect the places they visit and the people they meet. I think people are also recognizing that bargain travel has hidden expenses and dangers.

Costa Rica was an eye-opener for me; it deserves its reputation as a leader in responsible tourism that nurtures nature and society.

Finally, several groups including the United Nations World Tourism Organization have put together a global sustainable tourism council with a certification program to show tourists which places are genuinely making the effort.

Thoughts? Counterpoints? Leave a comment to let us know how you feel about this important topic.

History & Culture

History & Culture
Coronavirus Coverage
Mind, Body, Wonder
Paid Content
Terms of Use
Privacy Policy
Your US State Privacy Rights
Children's Online Privacy Policy
Interest-Based Ads
About Nielsen Measurement
Do Not Sell or Share My Personal Information
Nat Geo Home
Attend a Live Event
Book a Trip
Inspire Your Kids
Shop Nat Geo
Visit the D.C. Museum
Learn About Our Impact
Support Our Mission
Advertise With Us
Customer Service
Renew Subscription
Manage Your Subscription
Work at Nat Geo
Sign Up for Our Newsletters
Contribute to Protect the Planet

UC Berkeley’s Premier Undergraduate Economics Journal

Tourist Economy: The Impact of Safari in Developing African Countries

FELIX ZHANG – SEPTEMBER 6, 2023 EDITOR: ARYAN SHAFAT

Overview of Safari

From a distance, the cluster of palm trees in the Kenyan plains seems like an oasis. The verdant green colors stand out in the late summer landscape that has faced a particularly dry August. Going closer to the grove, it becomes clear that this is not a natural oasis, but instead a man-made resort that is designed to provide all the comforts of luxury while getting wealthy international tourists up close to Africa’s abundant wildlife. In Kenya, where roughly 8% of total GDP in 2019 came from the safari-driven tourism industry, safari is not just another experience, but an integral part of the national economy. Kenya is not alone when it comes to having a robust safari industry; in countries like Botswana and South Africa , safari is also a crucial stream of income while serving as a tool for public image and government diplomacy.

Across Kenya’s southern border in Tanzania, a 2014 study found that the safari industry accounted for 345,000 jobs in 2011, including nature guides, service staff working in hotels and resorts, drivers, and conservationists. Like Kenya, Tanzania’s economy is also heavily reliant on its tourism industry. In 2019, before the COVID-19 pandemic impacted international tourism, 10.6% of the country’s total GDP came from the tourism sector, with 2022 revenues nearly recovering to that point.

Annually, the safari industry has generated over $12 billion in revenues for Africa’s top wildlife destinations. This is not to mention the revenue earned by other service and hospitality industries that benefit as proxies of safari tourism. For many rural Africans, safari is the single most important source of income, with the COVID-19 pandemic demonstrating safari’s net economic impact. The pandemic led to a 93% decrease in tourist arrivals, forcing the majority of safari companies to lay off employees and cancel planned tours and trips. Because each safari job in Africa supports 8 to 10 dependents , a downward trend in safari sales could cause trickle-down effects for families and communities. The safari powerhouse of Kenya saw a loss of over $1 billion in tourism revenues in 2020 alone, and in some parts of safari-reliant Africa, subsistence poaching increased by up to 200% as individuals required food and income to weather the virus-driven downturn.

Safari is so crucial to rural Africa because of a lack of other reliable jobs. The land is generally not fertile enough to turn a profit on agriculture , and the developing nature of many of Africa’s economies means that rural areas often get left behind when countries consider how to grow and expand. Additionally, in most of these countries, there is a lack of a strong social safety net , meaning that a steady stream of tourists is analogous to a steady stream of income.

Therefore, it becomes clear that safari is a crucial component to financing community wide projects that can help lift villages out of poverty. Traditionally, tourism funds have led to community development programs, including the construction of schools and health clinics, which could prove crucial in providing economic opportunities for the next generation of rural Africans. As part of a continent wide initiative, the African Continental Free Trade Area has identified tourism as a priority sector to increase intra-regional trade. Continent wide reforms to make travel easier and more affordable for both domestic and international tourists can prove crucial for lower to middle income sub-saharan countries by improving the business environment, generating improved infrastructure, and leading to a more unified continental economy. While safari will be crucial to African economic development, countries must also recognize the volatility of relying on the tourism sector, as exemplified by the pandemic. It is important for safari to be a component of African economic growth, but in conjunction with development in other sectors. Investing safari funds towards community development projects is one way to generate more jobs, higher educational outcomes, and bring economic diversification in currently safari-reliant regions.

Safari and Conservation

Following the decolonization of Africa in the second half of the 20th century, local governments began protecting wildlife , realizing the need to preserve their most valuable assets for future generations. While this forced many local tribes to adapt their customs of hunting game, it also gave rise to a lucrative and environmentally degrading poaching industry.

While the poaching industry has been declining in recent years due to stronger regulations and improved patrolling, experts fear that the lack of economic inflows due to the continuing impacts of the pandemic could reaggravate poaching as a desperate means to make money. The pandemic has exasperated this issue, but poaching has historically been an in demand profession for many of the rural poor in Africa. Rhino horn, for example, has experienced high demand from the east Asian market for perceived medicinal benefits, causing it to sometimes be worth more than diamonds by weight. Therefore, some rural Africans may risk getting into trouble with rules and regulations because of the potential economic implications from selling rhino horn or authentic elephant ivory.

More recently, safaris have begun to take a more conservationist approach, with a generation of more socially conscious travelers visiting the African continent. However, while many lodges now offer programs such as allotting a certain percentage of revenues towards conservationist efforts, safaris may still have a negative impact on native African wildlife. Some experts fear that safaris may distort natural animal behaviors, as the process of going on a safari involves actively looking to observe and photograph wildlife. While the ethics of safari for animals are not clear cut, the revenues generated from safaris end up incentivizing the preservation of local African wildlife, due to preservation’s associated economic benefits.

Safari and People

It is impossible to discuss the economic implications of safari without considering its impact on the people of Africa. The first safari tourists who began to visit Africa in the 19th century were rich Victorian-era Europeans, who were most often there to collect rare African animals as trophies . During the early era of safari, it was white Europeans who served as hunting guides, while black Africans were barely paid to serve as porters. Because of its origin from aristocratic and colonial European society, safaris have often been rightfully connected with the brutal European conquest of Africa.

To this day, the safari industry is still largely dominated by white male Africans while primarily serving white international tourists . In places like South Africa, the majority of ownership of land and private companies in the safari industry is controlled by white Afrikaners. There has also been a long standing dynamic in the safari industry where white Africans achieve more lucrative positions as leading tour guides, receiving better pay and tips. Meanwhile, black Africans, who are often forced to only work on the service side of safari, earn salaries as low as $500 USD a month, potentially less than the cost of a one night stay for a rich international tourist. These service side employees may often be forced to work for up to three consecutive weeks on end, with poor housing conditions and little to no benefits.

Another one of the colonial impacts that still plagues African communities is the concept of “Fortress Conservation” . Fortress conservation is a doctrine in which the separation of land for wildlife and people is strictly enforced. This type of conservation has certain benefits, as it prioritizes the preservation of natural spaces. However, it is important to consider the ways that fortress conservation has been used to exploit and devalue indigenous people who have lived in regions for generations. In the past this took form with exclusionary laws that ensured that white safari tourists could have untamed and unpopulated wilderness to sightsee and hunt. Meanwhile, black Africans who had lived on the land for generations were not allowed to engage in their traditional relationship with the flora and fauna that involved subsistence hunting and harvesting. Fortress conservation can contribute to curate an image of an untamed African wilderness while ignoring the history of the land’s prior human inhabitants and their colonial exploitation.

As with any tourist industry, safari is not perfect by any means. There are ethical questions that have to be brought up about the way that safaris have treated both animals and people in the past and present. Despite its flaws, safaris are an important driver of economic growth in the African continent, especially for rural areas that might not receive many other opportunities. While not a silver bullet for Africa’s development, safaris can also be a crucial component in Africa’s expanding international reach. Furthermore, safaris should increase their localization and make sure that benefits remain largely within the local communities that ensure the smooth operation of the industry. As Africa further integrates into the globalizing world economy, the continent will only see an increased number of visitors, and how the safari industry adapts to benefit people and nature will be squarely in the spotlight.

Featured Image Source: Travel and Leisure Disclaimer: The views published in this journal are those of the individual authors or speakers and do not necessarily reflect the position or policy of Berkeley Economic Review staff, the Undergraduate Economics Association, the UC Berkeley Economics Department and faculty, or the University of California, Berkeley in general.

Share this article:

A Vaccine Won’t Cure COVID-19’s Effect on Education Inequality

Interview with Professor Andres Rodriguez-Clare

Social Security: An Answer for Developing Nations

subscribe to our Monthly Newsletter!

10 Economic impacts of tourism + explanations + examples

Disclaimer: Some posts on Tourism Teacher may contain affiliate links. If you appreciate this content, you can show your support by making a purchase through these links or by buying me a coffee . Thank you for your support!

There are many economic impacts of tourism, and it is important that we understand what they are and how we can maximise the positive economic impacts of tourism and minimise the negative economic impacts of tourism.

Many argue that the tourism industry is the largest industry in the world. While its actual value is difficult to accurately determine, the economic potential of the tourism industry is indisputable. In fact, it is because of the positive economic impacts that most destinations embark on their tourism journey.

There is, however, more than meets the eye in most cases. The positive economic impacts of tourism are often not as significant as anticipated. Furthermore, tourism activity tends to bring with it unwanted and often unexpected negative economic impacts of tourism.

In this article I will discuss the importance of understanding the economic impacts of tourism and what the economic impacts of tourism might be. A range of positive and negative impacts are discussed and case studies are provided.

At the end of the post I have provided some additional reading on the economic impacts of tourism for tourism stakeholders , students and those who are interested in learning more.

Foreign exchange earnings

Contribution to government revenues, employment generation, contribution to local economies, development of the private sector, infrastructure cost, increase in prices, economic dependence of the local community on tourism, foreign ownership and management, economic impacts of tourism: conclusion, further reading on the economic impacts of tourism, the economic impacts of tourism: why governments invest.

Tourism brings with it huge economic potential for a destination that wishes to develop their tourism industry. Employment, currency exchange, imports and taxes are just a few of the ways that tourism can bring money into a destination.

In recent years, tourism numbers have increased globally at exponential rates, as shown in the World Tourism Organisation data below.

There are a number of reasons for this growth including improvements in technology, increases in disposable income, the growth of budget airlines and consumer desires to travel further, to new destinations and more often.

Here are a few facts about the economic importance of the tourism industry globally:

The tourism economy represents 5 percent of world GDP
Tourism contributes to 6-7 percent of total employment
International tourism ranks fourth (after fuels, chemicals and automotive products) in global exports
The tourism industry is valued at US$1trillion a year
Tourism accounts for 30 percent of the world’s exports of commercial services
Tourism accounts for 6 percent of total exports
1.4billion international tourists were recorded in 2018 (UNWTO)
In over 150 countries, tourism is one of five top export earners
Tourism is the main source of foreign exchange for one-third of developing countries and one-half of less economically developed countries (LEDCs)

There is a wealth of data about the economic value of tourism worldwide, with lots of handy graphs and charts in the United Nations Economic Impact Report .

In short, tourism is an example of an economic policy pursued by governments because:

it brings in foreign exchange
it generates employment
it creates economic activity

Building and developing a tourism industry, however, involves a lot of initial and ongoing expenditure. The airport may need expanding. The beaches need to be regularly cleaned. New roads may need to be built. All of this takes money, which is usually a financial outlay required by the Government.

For governments, decisions have to be made regarding their expenditure. They must ask questions such as:

How much money should be spent on the provision of social services such as health, education, housing?

How much should be spent on building new tourism facilities or maintaining existing ones?

If financial investment and resources are provided for tourism, the issue of opportunity costs arises.

By opportunity costs, I mean that by spending money on tourism, money will not be spent somewhere else. Think of it like this- we all have a specified amount of money and when it runs out, it runs out. If we decide to buy the new shoes instead of going out for dinner than we might look great, but have nowhere to go…!

In tourism, this means that the money and resources that are used for one purpose may not then be available to be used for other purposes. Some destinations have been known to spend more money on tourism than on providing education or healthcare for the people who live there, for example.

This can be said for other stakeholders of the tourism industry too.

There are a number of independent, franchised or multinational investors who play an important role in the industry. They may own hotels, roads or land amongst other aspects that are important players in the overall success of the tourism industry. Many businesses and individuals will take out loans to help fund their initial ventures.

So investing in tourism is big business, that much is clear. What what are the positive and negative impacts of this?

Positive economic impacts of tourism

So what are the positive economic impacts of tourism? As I explained, most destinations choose to invest their time and money into tourism because of the positive economic impacts that they hope to achieve. There are a range of possible positive economic impacts. I will explain the most common economic benefits of tourism below.

One of the biggest benefits of tourism is the ability to make money through foreign exchange earnings.

Tourism expenditures generate income to the host economy. The money that the country makes from tourism can then be reinvested in the economy. How a destination manages their finances differs around the world; some destinations may spend this money on growing their tourism industry further, some may spend this money on public services such as education or healthcare and some destinations suffer extreme corruption so nobody really knows where the money ends up!

Some currencies are worth more than others and so some countries will target tourists from particular areas. I remember when I visited Goa and somebody helped to carry my luggage at the airport. I wanted to give them a small tip and handed them some Rupees only to be told that the young man would prefer a British Pound!

Currencies that are strong are generally the most desirable currencies. This typically includes the British Pound, American, Australian and Singapore Dollar and the Euro .

Tourism is one of the top five export categories for as many as 83% of countries and is a main source of foreign exchange earnings for at least 38% of countries.

Tourism can help to raise money that it then invested elsewhere by the Government. There are two main ways that this money is accumulated.

Direct contributions are generated by taxes on incomes from tourism employment and tourism businesses and things such as departure taxes.

Taxes differ considerably between destinations. I will never forget the first time that I was asked to pay a departure tax (I had never heard of it before then), because I was on my way home from a six month backpacking trip and I was almost out of money!

Japan is known for its high departure taxes. Here is a video by a travel blogger explaining how it works.

According to the World Tourism Organisation, the direct contribution of Travel & Tourism to GDP in 2018 was $2,750.7billion (3.2% of GDP). This is forecast to rise by 3.6% to $2,849.2billion in 2019.

Indirect contributions come from goods and services supplied to tourists which are not directly related to the tourism industry.

Take food, for example. A tourist may buy food at a local supermarket. The supermarket is not directly associated with tourism, but if it wasn’t for tourism its revenues wouldn’t be as high because the tourists would not shop there.

There is also the income that is generated through induced contributions . This accounts for money spent by the people who are employed in the tourism industry. This might include costs for housing, food, clothing and leisure Activities amongst others. This will all contribute to an increase in economic activity in the area where tourism is being developed.

The rapid expansion of international tourism has led to significant employment creation. From hotel managers to theme park operatives to cleaners, tourism creates many employment opportunities. Tourism supports some 7% of the world’s workers.

There are two types of employment in the tourism industry: direct and indirect.

Direct employment includes jobs that are immediately associated with the tourism industry. This might include hotel staff, restaurant staff or taxi drivers, to name a few.

Indirect employment includes jobs which are not technically based in the tourism industry, but are related to the tourism industry. Take a fisherman, for example. He does not have any contact of dealings with tourists. BUT he does sell his fish to the hotel which serves tourists. So he is indirectly employed by the tourism industry, because without the tourists he would not be supplying the fish to the hotel.

It is because of these indirect relationships, that it is very difficult to accurately measure the economic value of tourism.

It is also difficult to say how many people are employed, directly and indirectly, within the tourism industry.

Furthermore, many informal employments may not be officially accounted for. Think tut tut driver in Cambodia or street seller in The Gambia – these people are not likely to be registered by the state and therefore their earnings are not declared.

It is for this reason that some suggest that the actual economic benefits of tourism may be as high as double that of the recorded figures!

All of the money raised, whether through formal or informal means, has the potential to contribute to the local economy.

If sustainable tourism is demonstrated, money will be directed to areas that will benefit the local community most.

There may be pro-poor tourism initiatives (tourism which is intended to help the poor) or volunteer tourism projects.

The government may reinvest money towards public services and money earned by tourism employees will be spent in the local community. This is known as the multiplier effect.

The multiplier effect relates to spending in one place creating economic benefits elsewhere. Tourism can do wonders for a destination in areas that may seem to be completely unrelated to tourism, but which are actually connected somewhere in the economic system.

Let me give you an example.

A tourist buys an omelet and a glass of orange juice for their breakfast in the restaurant of their hotel. This simple transaction actually has a significant multiplier effect. Below I have listed just a few of the effects of the tourist buying this breakfast.

The waiter is paid a salary- he spends his salary on schooling for his kids- the school has more money to spend on equipment- the standard of education at the school increases- the kids graduate with better qualifications- as adults, they secure better paying jobs- they can then spend more money in the local community…

The restaurant purchases eggs from a local farmer- the farmer uses that money to buy some more chickens- the chicken breeder uses that money to improve the standards of their cages, meaning that the chickens are healthier, live longer and lay more eggs- they can now sell the chickens for a higher price- the increased money made means that they can hire an extra employee- the employee spends his income in the local community…

The restaurant purchase the oranges from a local supplier- the supplier uses this money to pay the lorry driver who transports the oranges- the lorry driver pays road tax- the Government uses said road tax income to fix pot holes in the road- the improved roads make journeys quicker for the local community…

So as you can see, that breakfast that the tourist probably gave not another thought to after taking his last mouthful of egg, actually had the potential to have a significant economic impact on the local community!

The private sector has continuously developed within the tourism industry and owning a business within the private sector can be extremely profitable; making this a positive economic impact of tourism.

Whilst many businesses that you will come across are multinational, internationally-owned organisations (which contribute towards economic leakage ).

Many are also owned by the local community. This is the case even more so in recent years due to the rise in the popularity of the sharing economy and the likes of Airbnb and Uber, which encourage the growth of businesses within the local community.

Every destination is different with regards to how they manage the development of the private sector in tourism.

Some destinations do not allow multinational organisations for fear that they will steal business and thus profits away from local people. I have seen this myself in Italy when I was in search of a Starbucks mug for my collection , only to find that Italy has not allowed the company to open up any shops in their country because they are very proud of their individually-owned coffee shops.

Negative economic impacts of tourism

Unfortunately, the tourism industry doesn’t always smell of roses and there are also several negative economic impacts of tourism.

There are many hidden costs to tourism, which can have unfavourable economic effects on the host community.

Whilst such negative impacts are well documented in the tourism literature, many tourists are unaware of the negative effects that their actions may cause. Likewise, many destinations who are inexperienced or uneducated in tourism and economics may not be aware of the problems that can occur if tourism is not management properly.

Below, I will outline the most prominent negative economic impacts of tourism.

Economic leakage in tourism is one of the major negative economic impacts of tourism. This is when money spent does not remain in the country but ends up elsewhere; therefore limiting the economic benefits of tourism to the host destination.

The biggest culprits of economic leakage are multinational and internationally-owned corporations, all-inclusive holidays and enclave tourism.

I have written a detailed post on the concept of economic leakage in tourism, you can take a look here- Economic leakage in tourism explained .

Another one of the negative economic impacts of tourism is the cost of infrastructure. Tourism development can cost the local government and local taxpayers a great deal of money.

Tourism may require the government to improve the airport, roads and other infrastructure, which are costly. The development of the third runway at London Heathrow, for example, is estimated to cost £18.6billion!

Money spent in these areas may reduce government money needed in other critical areas such as education and health, as I outlined previously in my discussion on opportunity costs.

glass bottle of cola with empty bottle on white surface

One of the most obvious economic impacts of tourism is that the very presence of tourism increases prices in the local area.

Have you ever tried to buy a can of Coke in the supermarket in your hotel? Or the bar on the beachfront? Walk five minutes down the road and try buying that same can in a local shop- I promise you, in the majority of cases you will see a BIG difference In cost! (For more travel hacks like this subscribe to my newsletter – I send out lots of tips, tricks and coupons!)

Increasing demand for basic services and goods from tourists will often cause price hikes that negatively impact local residents whose income does not increase proportionately.

Tourism development and the related rise in real estate demand may dramatically increase building costs and land values. This often means that local people will be forced to move away from the area that tourism is located, known as gentrification.

Taking measures to ensure that tourism is managed sustainably can help to mitigate this negative economic impact of tourism. Techniques such as employing only local people, limiting the number of all-inclusive hotels and encouraging the purchasing of local products and services can all help.

Another one of the major economic impacts of tourism is dependency. Many countries run the risk of becoming too dependant on tourism. The country sees $ signs and places all of its efforts in tourism. Whilst this can work out well, it is also risky business!

If for some reason tourism begins to lack in a destination, then it is important that the destination has alternative methods of making money. If they don’t, then they run the risk of being in severe financial difficulty if there is a decline in their tourism industry.

In The Gambia, for instance, 30% of the workforce depends directly or indirectly on tourism. In small island developing states, percentages can range from 83% in the Maldives to 21% in the Seychelles and 34% in Jamaica.

There are a number of reasons that tourism could decline in a destination.

The Gambia has experienced this just recently when they had a double hit on their tourism industry. The first hit was due to political instability in the country, which has put many tourists off visiting, and the second was when airline Monarch went bust, as they had a large market share in flights to The Gambia.

Other issues that could result in a decline in tourism includes economic recession, natural disasters and changing tourism patterns. Over-reliance on tourism carries risks to tourism-dependent economies, which can have devastating consequences.

The last of the negative economic impacts of tourism that I will discuss is that of foreign ownership and management.

As enterprise in the developed world becomes increasingly expensive, many businesses choose to go abroad. Whilst this may save the business money, it is usually not so beneficial for the economy of the host destination.

Foreign companies often bring with them their own staff, thus limiting the economic impact of increased employment. They will usually also export a large proportion of their income to the country where they are based. You can read more on this in my post on economic leakage in tourism .

As I have demonstrated in this post, tourism is a significant economic driver the world over. However, not all economic impacts of tourism are positive. In order to ensure that the economic impacts of tourism are maximised, careful management of the tourism industry is required.

If you enjoyed this article on the economic impacts of tourism I am sure that you will love these too-

Environmental impacts of tourism
The 3 types of travel and tourism organisations
150 types of tourism! The ultimate tourism glossary
50 fascinating facts about the travel and tourism industry
23 Types of Water Transport To Keep You Afloat

Liked this article? Click to share!

Free essays

We use cookies to make your user experience better.

By staying on our website, you fully accept it. Read more » It's OK

The Social and Economic Effects of Tourism in Developing Countries

Typically, tourism can be considered as a bundle of services and goods combined in an appropriate proportion. The reason is that tourists cannot substitute transportation for hotels, food or other services. Most of the developed European countries, such as France, Austria, and Switzerland have improved their social and economic reforms on profits from tourism. According to the latest statistics, tourism itself employs almost one tenth of the world’s workforce and contributes to approximately 10 percent of the world’s total income (Mill 2007).

The actual and potential effect of tourism proved astounding, as many developing economies view tourism as a powerful source of foreign exchange, an approach to balance foreign trade, the industry without any manufacturing process and much more benefits. Although, tourism has proved to be a significant contributor in development of nation’s economy, there are several positive and negative aspects of tourism boom for local communities, which advocates of tourism perspective fail to consider (Britton 1982).This paper discusses whether the economic benefits and costs of tourism reach everyone in one way or another and highlight social and economic impacts of tourism at the country level.

Get a price quote

Save 15% OFF on your 1st order

The Social and Environmental Impacts of Tourism

Socially tourism renders a powerful impact on the host countries. Tourism in itself can be both a source of international peace, amity, and a tool of improving relations with other countries, but at the same time a source of ecological destruction, a destroyer and corrupter of indigenous cultures, and an assault on people’s dignity, privacy and authenticity. The positive impacts of tourism:

Tourism develops a positive attitude among nations;
Tourism helps in learning cultures, traditions and customs of different nations;
Tourism reduces negative beliefs, perceptions and stereotypes;
Tourism develops pride, friendship, appreciation, mutual respect, and tolerance of culture;
Cooperation in economic and financial assistance;
Tourism enhances the image of the host country.

The social contacts and understanding among tourists and local communities enable mutual understanding, awareness, tolerance, family bonding, respect and positive attitudes. Residents obtain knowledge and information of events occurring in the world without leaving their country, while tourists gain knowledge of their distinctive culture. Further local communities receive benefits through contribution by tourism, such as improvement of social infrastructure, schools, health care facilities, libraries, internet cafes, hotels and restaurants, entertainment parks. Moreover, if local culture is the basis for attracting tourists, then it enables in preserving the local traditions, handicrafts and old monuments (Mathieson 1992).

For example, in several regions of Uzbekistan such as Buhara, Horezm, and Samarqand, tourists enormously contribute in the preservation of traditional handicrafts, hammered copper work, wood carving, handmade carpets and fabrics, as well as maintenance of historical and architectural monuments. Since Uzbek proclaimed its independence in the year 1991, the government initiated efforts in renovating, and preserved monuments and museums for promoting the national traditions, and acquainting the world with its culture. The increased interest in this culture and values offers the citizens proud of their cultural wealth besides survival of local cottage industry and employment.

On the other hand, tourism can accelerate hostility, tension, and suspicion, and its claim as a vital tool for peace will remain exaggerated. In fact, the evidence does not show that tourism is bringing the world together. In this context, social and economic influences on the citizens depend on how much revenue generated by the influx of tourists go to the host communities. The most of the revenue earned from tourists goes to the hotels, travelling agencies, airlines and other international companies, whereas local people and workers do not receive many benefits (Archer 1995). The unsuccessful development of resources can further lead to several negative effects, such as assimilation, conflicts, and unpleasantness among host country and tourists. While presenting a traditional culture to tourists may help to preserve the culture, it can also destroy or dilute. Negative effects from tourism occur when the influx of tourists is greater than the ability of the environment to cope with this situation within the acceptable limits of change. The conventional uncontrolled tourism leads to potential threats to several natural areas in the developing countries. It can render enormous pressure on an area that may lead to increased pollution, soil erosion, natural habit loss, discharges into sea, increased threat on endangered species and vulnerability to forest fires. Further, it often creates a strain on water resources, thereby forcing local population to compete and manage the resources for their own use (Archer 2000).

Our outstanding writers are mostly educated to MA and PhD level

The Economic Impacts of Tourism on Developing Countries

Tourism produces a variety of economic impacts. The host country receives a significant contribution from tourists in terms of sales, profits, tax revenues, jobs, and increased income in an area. The prime direct impacts occur within the main tourism sectors, such as transportation, restaurants, lodging, retail trade, and amusements. Through secondary impacts, tourism affects most sectors of the economy. An economic effect analysis of tourism activity usually reflects on changes in sales, employment, income in a region, occurring from activity of tourism. The effects of tourism can be described as more than the result of a certain tourist activity, facility or an event. The impacts appear as changed human behavior that originates from the interactions between the subsystems and agents of change on which they impinge. The connectivity between the various categories of tourism effects such as physical, social and economic are extremely close and difficult to measure and plan. The potential economic advantages of tourism have always been a prime attraction for developing nations due to three pro-tourism arguments. First, the increasing trend in demand for international travel continues to grow at an astonishing rate due to the travel preferences and economic stability of people in the developed countries such Europe and North America. Secondly, the income flexibility of demand for tourism points that as the incomes of people in the developed nations increase, more disposable income will move towards travel. Finally, developing nations require foreign exchange to fulfill their economic development initiatives and for satisfying the demands of their own citizens (Pleumarom 1999).

There are various categories of economic influences that are not usually included in economic impact evaluations, at least not directly. For instance:

Changes in prices – The tourism industry has a tendency to inflate the cost of housing and retail prices in the region, frequently on a seasonal basis.
Changes in the quantity and quality of goods and services – The tourism can lead to a wider array of products and services of either lower or higher quality than without tourism.
Changes in housing property and taxes – The taxes covering the cost of local services may be lower or higher during the presence of tourism activity. In several cases, taxes collected indirectly or directly from tourists may result in reduced local taxes for roads, schools and rehabilitation of poor and needy. On the other hand, there can be a likelihood that the taxation on local people may increase to cover the additional infrastructure and service costs.
Economic dimensions of environmental and social effects – There are several economic consequences of most environmental and social impacts that can be positive or negative. For instance, the traffic congestion may result in increased costs of movements for both businesses and households. Improved amenities, which attract tourists, can also encourage withdrawal or other kinds of business activities to locate in the area (Wahab 1997).

One of the most significant economic impacts is on balance of payments. The BOP account is a record of economic transactions during a certain time between residents of the host country and the rest of the world. The income a nation derives from tourism can assist to balance the nation’s BOP. This owns a significant consideration, as the nation then gains foreign currency. The impacts of BOP are the most powerful economic impacts on the tourism industry. The BOP account incorporates the value of all gifts, loans, gold, and foreign aid that comes in or leaves the nation. Tourism influences the BOP in two ways: impacts within the nation and impacts on international tourism. This is necessary to know in order to calculate foreign exchange earnings in the BOP and compare them with costs. In other terms, it helps to know if more money is leaving the country than earned from international tourism (De Kadt 1997).

Any referencing Style

Reputable & up-to-date Sources

We Work Even with Tight Deadlines

Tourism has always been regarded in most developing economies as a powerful support to other economic sectors, ranging from manufacturing to resource industries. Indeed, in the past decades of economic reforms, revenue earned from tourism remained hidden in several service categories. This paper discussed some of the social and economic impacts of tourism that results for developing countries in either loosing or gaining significant revenues. The crucial needs of maintaining tourism incomes in developing nations are necessary in order to derive the richer objectives of sustainable tourism development. For developing nations, there is a need to explore financial resources to dilute the negative social and environmental impacts occurring from tourism in the long run.

IMAGES

Negative impacts of tourism on the environment
The countries most vulnerable to Covid-19 impact on tourism
PPT
Negative impacts of tourism on the environment
Introduction to Destination Marketing 5: Negative impacts of tourism
Petition · End The Negative Effects of Tourism on the Ocean · Change.org

VIDEO

ECONOMIC IMPACT OF TOURISM
Environmental Impacts of tourism
Environmental Negative Impacts Of Tourism Industry
IMPACT OF TOURISM ON WILDLIFE II BOTH +VE AND -VE II FULL EXPLANATION
Economic Ripples Impact of Political Controversy on Tourism Revenue

COMMENTS

What is the impact of tourism on development?
After surpassing 1 billion international visitors in 2012, we are expecting 1.8 billion by 2030. Tourism is growing faster than the global economy and, for the first time, the statistics for 2015 are expected to show that there were more trips taken to the developing world than to the developed world. But what does this actually mean?
Role of Tourism in Sustainable Development
In developing countries, tourism development has been used as an important strategy for increasing economic growth, alleviating poverty, creating jobs, and improving food security. ... Future research on the role of tourism in sustainable development should focus on reducing the negative impacts of tourism development, both regionally and ...
Overtourism Effects: Positive and Negative Impacts for ...
Tourism has the potential to help overcome its negative impacts discernible though overtourism by contributing toward the United Nations' Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) (Leung et al. 2018, p. 6).Tourism has been recognized to play a role in achieving sustainable economic growth (SGD 8), in contributing toward sustainable consumption and production (SDG 12), and investing efforts to ...
Eco-tourism, climate change, and environmental policies ...
Contrary to the findings of developing countries, carbon dioxide emission in developed countries has a negative and significant effect, meaning that with an increase of 1% in carbon dioxide in ...
Challenges of community participation in tourism planning in developing
These negative impacts of tourism may indicate an absence of planning (Zhong et al., Citation 2011) or a lack of community participation in ... previous research by Zielinski et al. (Citation 2018) only found 63 articles on inhibiting factors for community-based tourism in developing countries, with 30 published between 2010-2018. On average ...
Full article: Benefits and threats of travel and tourism in a
Travellers were seldomly aware of the many negative impacts the tourism industry could have on people and culture. Local people grew weary of poor working conditions, lifestyle changes, and cultural loss brought on by mass tourism. A fear of losing tourism dollars often led to management strategies that submitted local natural and cultural ...
Sustainable tourism
Tourism is one of the world's fastest growing industries and an important source of foreign exchange and employment, while being closely linked to the social, economic, and environmental well-being of many countries, especially developing countries. Maritime or ocean-related tourism, as well as coastal tourism, are for example vital sectors of the economy in small island developing States ...
Impact of tourism on sustainable development in BRI countries: The
This study investigated the influence of tourism on sustainable development while considering institutional quality as a moderating variable. Moreover, exchange rate, urbanization, household consumption, per capita income and renewable energy per capita were also essential factors in determining sustainable development. The sample consists of 64 Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) countries from ...
International tourism and income inequality: The role of economic and
However, empirical findings on the impact of international tourism on income inequality are still unclear after taking into account countries' economic development stages. The study of Fang et al. (2021) observes a statistically significant negative impact of tourism on income inequality in developing countries. Whereas they find tourism has ...
EU Guidebook on Sustainable Tourism for Development
The purpose of the study is to enhance common understanding and commitment about Sustainable Tourism and to demonstrate how it is a vehicle to foster economic and social growth, through the achievement of development imperatives, while minimizing negative social, cultural and environmental impacts.. The document is aimed at two main audiences: The EU and other development assistance agencies ...
[PDF] Tourism in developing countries
Economics, Business. 1997. 73. The effect of tourism activity in developing countries has been a hotly debated topic for a number of decades. Opinions have fluctuated between the extremes of tourism as the catalyst for socio-economic development and tourism as the basis for neo-colonial exploitation and environmental and cultural decline.
Is Tourism Destroying the World?
But tourism isn't treated as a serious business or economic force. Travel sections are all about the best vacations. So I used a fellowship at Harvard to begin my research and then wrote this ...
Do positive and negative shocks of tourism development affect income
Income inequality is an essential cause of violence, stagnant development, and political instability. This study will examine the positive and negative shocks in tourism development, and the distribution of the interaction between tourism development, economic growth, human capital, globalization, and income inequality will be discussed in Singapore, a developed and top-visited country. By ...
Tourism Sustainability in Developing Countries and Emerging ...
Interests: tourism sustainability and competitiveness; tourism in developing countries; destination management. Special Issue Information. Dear Colleagues, ... The magnitude of the spillover effects of air pollution is larger than the negative direct effects on local cities. This study suggests that enhancing air quality in the local area will ...
Tourism at World Heritage Sites
Tourism has grown at an accelerated pace over the last few decades, with more than a billion tourists now travelling to an international destination each year. One of the main motivations of tourism is mankind's inherent curiosity and desire to explore cultural identities across the world. Natural and cultural heritage sites, including scenic ...
Challenges of community participation in tourism planning in developing
Abstract: The purpose of this study is to analyze the challenges faced by the. community in participating in sustainable tourism in developing countries. The. research was conducted using a ...
Full article: The negative cultural impact of tourism and its
Creating awareness among the local communities about the negative impact of tourism is an essential condition for developing a well-planned tourism industry at tourist destinations of Amhara Regional State. ... But now the religious clothes are made of raw materials that are imported from foreign countries, as well as any materials that are ...
Impact of COVID-19 on tourism in small island developing states
The COVID-19 pandemic and the measures put in place to contain its diffusion are taking a heavy toll on the tourism sector. According to the United Nations World Tourism Organization (UNWTO), the COVID-19 pandemic will result in a contraction of the tourism sector by 20% to 30% in 2020. This estimate is likely to be conservative for countries ...
Developing Countries Could Target Tourism to Boost Economic Growth
TAD/INF/PR/9817. DEVELOPING COUNTRIES COULD TARGET TOURISM TO BOOST ECONOMIC GROWTH. Geneva, Switzerland, 9 June 1998. Tourism is the only major sector in international trade in services in which developing countries have consistently had surpluses; the positive balance in their travel account has improved from US$6 billion in 1980 to US$62.2 ...
Resident's Perspective on Developing Community-Based Tourism
Community-Based Tourism (CBT) has been presented as an alternative means to traditional mass tourism in developing countries, ... Thus, with respect to this kind of tourism, possible solutions have emerged in order to deal with the negative impacts and problems of mass tourism in developing countries, consequently, to be future-oriented toward ...
Tourist Economy: The Impact of Safari in Developing African Countries
In 2019, before the COVID-19 pandemic impacted international tourism, 10.6% of the country's total GDP came from the tourism sector, with 2022 revenues nearly recovering to that point. Annually, the safari industry has generated over $12 billion in revenues for Africa's top wildlife destinations. This is not to mention the revenue earned by ...
10 Economic impacts of tourism + explanations + examples
This detailed post explains what the positive and negative economic impacts of tourism are and how good travel and tourism management can help. ... In over 150 countries, tourism is one of five top export earners; Tourism is the main source of foreign exchange for one-third of developing countries and one-half of less economically developed ...
The Effects of Tourism in Developing Countries (Essay)
The Economic Impacts of Tourism on Developing Countries. Tourism produces a variety of economic impacts. The host country receives a significant contribution from tourists in terms of sales, profits, tax revenues, jobs, and increased income in an area. The prime direct impacts occur within the main tourism sectors, such as transportation ...

What is the impact of tourism on development?

.chakra .wef-1nk5u5d{margin-top:16px;margin-bottom:16px;line-height:1.388;color:#2846F8;font-size:1.25rem;}@media screen and (min-width:56.5rem){.chakra .wef-1nk5u5d{font-size:1.125rem;}} Get involved with our crowdsourced digital platform to deliver impact at scale

Don't miss any update on this topic

Related topics:

Article contents

Introduction

Alternative Tourism and Sustainable Development

Community-Based Tourism

Pro-Poor Tourism

Slow Tourism

Impacts of Tourism Development

Economic Impacts of Tourism

Environmental Impacts of Tourism

Social Impacts of Tourism

Sustainability of Tourism

Further Reading

Overtourism Effects: Positive and Negative Impacts for Sustainable Development

Definitions

Access this chapter

Author information

Corresponding author

Editor information

Section Editor information

Rights and permissions

Copyright information

About this entry

Download citation

Eco-tourism, climate change, and environmental policies: empirical evidence from developing economies

Similar content being viewed by others

Comprehensive green growth indicators across countries and territories

Role of foreign direct Investment and political openness in boosting the eco-tourism sector for achieving sustainability

Ways to bring private investment to the tourism industry for green growth

Literature review

Data and model specification

Model specification

Empirical results

Consideration of uncertainty

Difference in developed and developing economies

Conclusions and policy recommendations

Policy implications

Limitations and recommendations to further research

Data availability

Author information

Corresponding authors

Ethics declarations

Ethical approval

Informed consent

Rights and permissions

About this article

Share this article

This article is cited by

Quick links

Sustainable tourism

Description

UNWTO Annual Report 2015

UNWTO Annual Report 2016

Emerging Issues for Small Island Developing States

Transforming our World: The 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development

Status and Trends of Caribbean Coral Reefs: 1970-2012

15 Years of the UNWTO World Tourism Network on Child Protection: A Compilation of Good Practices

Towards Measuring the Economic Value of Wildlife Watching Tourism in Africa

Natural Resources Forum: Special Issue Tourism

Thailand: Supporting Sustainable Development in Thailand: A Geographic Clusters Approach

Natural Resources Forum, a United Nations Sustainable Development Journal (NRF)

Road Map on Building a Green Economy for Sustainable Development in Carriacou and Petite Martinique, Grenada

UN Ocean Conference 2025

UN Ocean Conference 2022

58th Session of the Commission for Social Development – CSocD58

World Tourism Day 2016 Official Celebration

4th Global Summit on City Tourism

2nd Euro-Asian Mountain Resorts Conference

21st General Assembly of the United Nations World Tourism Organization

UN Tourism | Bringing the world closer

EU Guidebook on Sustainable Tourism for Development

Background- Sustainable Tourism for Development

The Purpose of the Guidebook- Sustainable Tourism for Development

Related links

“Sustainable Tourism for development in developing countries”: A document in three interlinking parts

Assess your needs!

Is Tourism Destroying the World?